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Ex lihris Henry S. Saunders

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Which reminds us that Harry got con-
siderably ahead of us with his excellent
comment on the Final Number of The
Little Review. We didn't get our copy
until just recently. One thing strikes us
forcibly as we glance through it: how vast-
ly important the lesser of its contributors
seem to themselves. Here and there, how-
ever, one is relieved by taciturnity: in gen-
eral the taciturnity bears a direct relation
to the importance of the writer. There are
exceptions. But for the most part the most
important writers react most briefly to the
questionnaire set them. Most of all in the
number we enjoyed the various snap shots
of the editor, Margaret Anderson. She cer-
tainly is a darn pretty girl. . . .

S<3tt iW. r| AiA.' ^yj

THE LITTLE REVIEW. New York. March 1918
to December 192 0.

Ulysses made its first printed ap-
pearance in "The Little Review" edited in
New York by Margaret C. Anderson and Jane
Heap. Twenty-three installments appeared
between March 1918 and December 192 0. The
issues of January and May 1919 and January
and July-August 192 were banned or con-
fiscated by the U.S. Post Office. No
further installments appeared after the
September-December 192 issue and, thus,
this first appearance of the text is
incomplete. Although few copies of these
issues are in existence, the Brown University
file, shown here in part, is complete.

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UTTLE REYIEW

VOL. VII MAY-JUNE No. 1

CONTENTS

Frontispiece Portrait

W. H. Hudson: Some Reminiscences Ford Madox Hueffer

Hudson: Poet Strayed into Science Ezra Pound

W. H. Hudson John Rodker ,

Nine Chinese Poems Witter Bynner

L'Amazone Ghana Orloff

Religion Maxwell Bodenhe'un

Poems: Mark Turbyfill

The Metaphysical Botanists

Batik

Femme Enceinte Ghana Orloff

The Other Woman ' Sherwood Anderson

Danpeuses Ghana Orloff

Danke Pseudomacabre William Garlos Williams
Disqussion:

Noble Words Maxwell Bodenheim

Ghana Orloff Muriel Giolkowska

Interim (conclusion) Dorothy Richardson

Ulysses (Episode Xlll) James Joyce
The Reader Critic

^bscription price, payable in advance, in the United States and Territories, $2.50
perjyear; Single copy, 2Sc. ; Canada, $2.75; Foreign, $3.00. Published monthly and
copyrighted, 1920, by Margaret C. Anderson.

Manuscripts must be submitted at author's risk, with return postage.

Entered as second class matter March 16, 1917, at the Post Office at New York,
N. v., under the act of March 3, 1879.

MARGARET G. ANDERSON, Publisher

27 West Eighth Street, New York, N. Y.

/oreiffn Office: 43 Belsizf Park Gar^em, London, N, W, 3.

W. H. HUDSON.

THE
UTTLE REVIEW

IV. H. Hudson

Some Reminiscences

by Ford Madox Huejfer

FOR a long, long time I dare say for twenty-five years — I
have been longing to say something about Hudson. But
what is there to say? Of things immense, tranquil or con-
summate, it is difficult indeed to speak or to write. The
! words are at the tip of the tongue; the ideas at the back of
the brain . . . and yet: Nothing! So one says: "immense,"
"tranquil," "consummate."

Suppose one should say that one would willingly cancel every one
of the forty or so books that one has published if one could be given
the power to write one paragraph as this great poet writes a para-
graph 3 or that one would willingly give up all one's powers of visual-
ising this and that if one could be granted this great naturalist's
power of looking at a little bird. . . . But of course that would
not bf enough. Or rather it would be nothing at all. For I suppose
that if one had the power to frame one paragraph one could frame
others: and if one had the vision of the poet one would be the poet's
self. One might say — and indeed I do say with perfect sincerity —
that one would willingly sacrifice all one's gifts as a writer if one
could give to this unapproached master of English ten years longer
pf writing life. . . , But even that would be selfish — for one

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would have the pleasure : one would read what he wrote.

For me, then, Hudson is the unapproached master of the English
tongue. There are no doubt other English writers — though English
as a language is woefully lacking in prose towards which one need not
be kind — in unassailable prose. Still there are possibly other English
writers. But there is no other English writer that you cannot say
something about. One derives from Sir Thomas Browne — but is not
as good ; another gets his effects from a profound study of the Author-
ised Version but falls short of the resonance of the Inspired Original ;
another has caught the jolly humor of Rabelais; when Mr. Peskith
writes you might swear it was Montaigne speaking; someone else puts
down the thoughts of Dante in the language of Shapespeare. . . .
Well, we know the sort of stuff that English prose is. Only Hudson
is different.

The only English writer with whom I have ever had the luck to
discuss the "how" of writing was Mr. Conrad. (I will say this for
Americans that, if they practice letters, they are much more usually
devoured by curiosity about what is called "technique." I have heard
Mr. Owen Wister talk for quite a time on several occasions with Mr.
James about the written word as a means of expression. I have talked
for hours with members of the editorial staff of New York magazines
— as to how to write a short story! — and I used to talk for hours with
Stephen Crane — why is poor dear Stevie forgotten ; the finest poet
that two continents produced in a century? — just about words! And
Crane made the most illuminating remark about English prose that I
ever heard). But the onl} true-blue English writers that I ever heard
discuss how to write, as apart from how to make money by writing or
who was the best Agent or the worst Publisher or the meanest Editor
or the Best Seller — was, then, Mr. Conrad.

And, once, Mr. Conrad looked up from reading "Green Mansions"
and said: "You can't tell how this fellow gets his effects!" And, a
long time after I had agreed that I couldn't tell how Hudson got his
effects, Conrad continued: "He writes as the grass grows. The gjol
God makes it be there. And that is all there is to it!"

And that is all there is to it. "Green Mansions" is the only Eiglish
novel of passion; the "Purple Land" is the onl\- English ncncl ui;

The Little Review

Romaiice (and 1 don't except Mr. Conrad's and my own Romances).
"Natuie in Devonland," "Hampshire Days," "Birds in a Village"
and the "Shepherds' Life" are the only English books about England.
And ydu must remember that Mr. Hudson is an American of New
England stock.

"The Good God makes it be there!"— Was there ever a more
splendid phrase uttered of a writer's prose? Every morning of my
life I lie in bed and look at a piece of mutton fat dangling from a
string outside the open window. Suddenly there is a flirt of wmgs:
the njutton fat crepitates, as you might say, against the panes. But
you sle nothing. Then the bird grows bolder, returns. It becomes
a bir^ form; hanging; upside down from the piece of fat; peckmg
rapidly. Against the morning light it looks grey, with dark margms
on th^ head. It is one of the tits : the Great Tit, I dare say.

\\^11: there it is and that's that! If you or I wrote about it, that
woult be all there was to it. A Gilbert White wrote about tomtits
running up drains in the neighbourhood of houses in search of succu-
lent tnorsels. But imagine Mr. Hudson first watching the bird and
then writing about it !

I juppose the chief characteristic of great writers — of writers who
are ^reat by temperament as well as by industry or contrivance — is
self-lbandonment. You imagine Mr. Hudson Avatching a tiny being
andlhis whole mind goes into the watdiing: then his whole mmd
goes into the rendering. Probably there is some delight in the
watL-hing and more austerity, more diligence, in the act of recording.
Thlt no doubt varies. Turgenev is such another as Mr. Hudson
and I can recall no third,

Turgenev, I mean, watched humanity with much such another en-
grossment as Mr. Hudson devotes to Kingfishers, sheep or the grass
of fields and rendered his results with the same tranquility. Prob-
aliy, however, Turgenev had a greater self-consciousness in the act
ofj writing: for of Mr. Hudson you might as well say that he never
hi read a book. The Good God makes his words be there. . . .
Still, in the "Sportsman's Sketches" and in the "Singers," the "Rattle
of) the Wheels" and in "Bielshin Prairie" above all — you get that
njte: — of the enamoured, of the rapt, watcher; so enamoured and so

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rapt that the watcher disappears, becoming merely part of the sur-
rounding atmosphere amidst which, with no self consciousness, the
men, the forests or the birds act and interact. I know, hovever, of
no other writers that possess this complete selflessness.

It is no doubt this faculty that gives to Mr. Hudson's vork the
power to suggest vast very tranquil space and a man absoutely at
home in it, or motionless vegetation, a huge forest and a traveler who
wishes to go nowhere, or ever to reach the forest bounds. For you
can suggest immensity in your rendering of the smallest of British
birds if you know an immense deal about the bird itself ; if you have
watched innumerable similar birds, travelling over shires, countries,
duchies, kingdoms, hemispheres — and always selflessly. So tie ren-
dering of one individual bird will connote to the mind of your reader
— if you happen to be Mr. Hudson! — the great distances of country
in which you have travelled in order that, having seen so many such
birds, you may so perfectly describe this one. Great plains will rise
up before your reader's mind: immensely high skies; distant blue
ranges, far woodlands. . . . Tranquil spaces: immense dis-
tances! . . . Consummate too! Because of course tlie Bon
Dieu — I beg Mr. Conrad's pardon! — the Good God did sonething
consummate when he gave to Mr. Hudson a style that is like the
green grass growing!

II.

It is twenty-five — or twenty-four, or twenty-three ! — years ago
since I sat with Conrad, one day in the drawing-room of my farm ;
the Pent it was called. We were deep in the struggles that produced
"Romance" and Conrad was groaning terribly and telling me — as he
has told in several kingdoms, shires, duchies, countries and langaages
— that I did not know how to write. Of course I didn't know how
to write as Mr. Conrad did before he became a true-blue Englislman.
At any rate we were engrossed.

A man went past the window: very tall, casting a shadow icross
the pink monthly roses. These commonplace Kentish flowers peeped
over the window sill of the deep, living-room whose low dappled

The Little Review

ceilirg was cut in half by a great beam. So the tall man's shadow
flickered across them

It is disturbing when you, a man of letters, engrossed in the "Heart
of tlie Country," see a shadow fall from a very tall stranger across
your room and the monthly roses. You think of duns, bailiffs, unpaid
butcler's bills. . . . But Conrad, always sanguine, hoping for
the best (I never had many hopes when strangers approached me)
excUimed: "That will be the man who wants to sell a horse!" Panic,
anylow, seized us. Dans un grenier comme'on est bien a vingt ans!
(I suppose I was twenty-four!) A panic! The immensely tall
strariger repassed the window.

Conrad went to the door. And I heard :

Conrad: You've come about the mare!

Ppice: I'm Hudson!

Conrad: She's out with the ladies.

mice: I'm Hudson!

Conrad: The mare will be back in about half an hour.

Hudson was staying at New Romney — which is New only in the
sense that William I. built it in 1080 A. D. instead of Cassar in
45 3. C. . . . Hudson then, was staying at New Romney and
liad walked over — fourteen miles in order to pay his respects to the
grejit author of "Youth," "Heart of Darkness," "Lord Jim," and
"Amayer's Folly." . . .

] remember Hudson again — there are more reminiscences! — in one
of the beastly cafes in Soho. (They resemble Mouquin's in Sixth
Aienue, New \ork, though I do not remember Mouquin's as being
bastly, at all — but very expensive by comparison!) At any rate it
wis the Cafe Riji, Soho. There were present Mr. Galsworthy, Mr.
Hlaire Belloc, Mr. Edward Garnett . . , Mr, .
Veil, I don't remember every one who was present. And just as
]\{r. Belloc was shouting "Glorious County, Sussex!"— in came Mr.
hidson.

The dialogue went on like this:

Belloc: Glorious county, Sussex! Glorious county, Sussex! You
en ride from the Crystal Palace to Beachy Head with only four
iecks !

The Little Review

Five! said Mr. Hudson. It was like the crack of doom; like
the deep voice of a raven ; like the sound of a direful bell.

Belloc: Only four checks! There's Woking, and Cucking! and
Ducking and . . .

"Five!" said Mr. Hudson.

Belloc: Only four checks! (He used a great many gesticula-
tions, telling the names off on his fingers in the French way.) There
are Woking and Cucking and Ducking and Hickley ...

"Five!" said Mr. Hudson.

Mr. Belloc repeated the queer names of Sussex villages. Then
Mr, Hudson said:

"East Dean!" Mr. Belloc threw his hand violently over his head
as one used to see people do on the Western front : then began to
tear, immediately afterwards, at his ruffled hair. He exclaimed "My
God! What a fool I am!" and stated that he was a Sussex man:
bred and born in Sussex: had never been out of Sussex for an hstant
in his life: had ridden every day from the Crystal Palace to Jeachy
Head. Yet he had forgotten East Dean.

AH the while Mr. Hudson sat motionless: grave: unwinking: gaz-
ing at his victim with the hypnotic glare of a beast of prey. O as if
he were studying a new specimen of the genus Fringillago !

III.

And I dare say that is how Mr. Hudson "gets his effects": pzing
at his subject with the expressionless passion of a bird of prey: keep-
ing as still as a tree: and then cutting down words to nothing. For
the three words: the reiterated "Five" and the final "East Dan,"
convinced one that Mr. Hudson had lived on the South Dowis all
his life and that you could trust him to take you from Brambr to
Findon in pitch black night. Whereas the thousands of words that
Mr. Belloc poured out only made you doubt that he had ever ben in
Sussex in his life.

Of course Mr. Belloc has lived in Sussex for a great part of hi; life,
and Mr. Hudson was born in the Argentine, of New England tock
— about 1790, I should say. I have heard him allege that whn he

The Little R e v i e

came to England he was the first member of his family to set foot on
these Islands for 250 years. So maybe he descends from the Navi-
gator. At any rate from those facts which may or may not be facts —
for as to the real date of Mr. Hudson's birth I have only impressions;
as for instance having heard him talk in terms of great intimacy of
the Dictator Bolivar who flourished about 1820. . . . But
then we can read "Far Away and Long Ago!" — so that at any rate
from these facts, of Argentine birth, long absence from this country,
immemorial antiquity, quietude and the exact habit of mind, we mav
get certain glimpses of Mr. Hudson's secret. For Mr. Hudson is a
secret and mysterious alchemist just as much as, or much more than.
Dr. Dewar.

Perhaps, owing to his Argentine birth and long racial absence from
these Islands, Mr. Hudson has escaped the infection of the slippy,
silly way we handle the language : he has escaped the Authorized
Version and the Morte d'Arthur and someone's Rabelais and some-
one else's Montaigne and Sir Thomas Browne's "Urn Burial," and
all the rest of it. (I may as well put down here what 1 meant when
I said just now that Stephen Crane said the most illuminating thing
I ever heard as to the English prose of to-day. He was talking about
the author of "Travels in the Cevennes with Mr. Colvin" — or what-
ever the title was, and he said: "By God! when Stevenson wrote:
'With interjected finger he delayed the action of the time piece,' when
he meant *he put the clock back,' Stevenson put back the clock of
English fiction 150 years." . . . Stevenson, as you know, was
the sedulous ape of Walter Pater or someone like that, and decked
himself out in allusions, borrowed words, stolen metaphors, inversions
and borrowed similes for all the world like Charles Lamb or a
Tommy coming back to the Line hung about with souvenirs). Well,
Mr. Hudson has escaped all that. You would, as I have said, think
he had never read a book in his life. Certainly he never read a book
and carried off a phrase like "interjected finger" to treasure it as Ole
Bill might treasure an Iron Cross raped from the breast of General
Humpfenstrumpfen, lately deceased. Then too, born in the Argen-
tine in remote ages, Mr. Hudson had the advantage of seeing the light
in a Latin country — at least 1 suppose seventeenth centurj' Argentina

10 TheLittlekevie

was a Latin country — and so he was among a population who used
words for the expression of thoughts. For, among us Occidentals, it
is only the Latin races who use words as clean tools, exactly, with
decency and modesty. You may see the same in the prose of Mr.
Cunninghame Graham who was also of South American origin and
is the only other true proseateur of these islands, since Mr. Conrad
writes not English but literal translations from unpublished Frencli
originals. (I suppose I ought to put in somewhere, "present com-
pany always excepted" — for the sake of politeness to possible readers!)
And then again, being the first of his family to visit England for
2,500 years or whatever it was, Mr. Hudson has the advantage of
being the first English writer to see this country — for at least that
period. Just as he has escaped our slippy use of the language so hv*
has escaped our slippy way of looking at a hill, a flower, a bird, an ivy
leaf. Yesterday 1 picked the first cuckoo flower and the first kingcup
of the year. When I got my hand well on the stem of the first I
exclaimed :

"When lady smocks all silver white
Do tint the meadows with delight

1 daresay I was misquoting, but I telt proud of myself and didn't
look at the flower.

When I grabbed the kingcup I said :

"Shine like fire in swamps and hollows grey." And I felt proud of
myself and didn't look at the flower.

When I hear my first skylark I shall spout:

"Hail to thee blithe spirit,
Bird thou never wast.

imd for the nightingale it will be: "Most musical; most melancholy!"
and I shan't much look at, or listen to, either fowl.
And it is the same with all us English writers.

For again there is the question of this alchemist's great age. Actu-
ally I believe Mr. Hudson lately celebrated his seventieth birthday.
1 have however known him for twenty-five, twenty-four or twenty-

The Little Review 11

thjcc years, and when I first met him he was eighty-two and told
personal anecdotes of the Court of George Washington. What I
mean by all this fantasia is that Mr. Hudson has an air of consum-
mate and unending permanence wherever he may happen to be, a
weather worn air as of an ancient tree, an ancient wag, a very old
peasant. Wherever you find him he will seem to have been there for
ages and to be time-stained to the colour of the hedgerows, the
heather, the downs or the country folic. So he fits in and trees,
birds, or shepherds are natural when he is about. Mr. Hudson him-
self is conscious of the fact, for he writes of Wiltshire in the opening
pages of the "Shepherd's Life": "Owing to a certain kind of adaptive-
ness in me, a sense of being at home wherever the grass grows, I am in
a vay a native of Wiltshire too." .... And he is a native of
Argentina, and La Plata, and Patagonia and Hampshire and the
Sussex downlands — wherever the grass grows. That is perhaps the
best gift that has been given to him by the Good God who has made
him such a great poet. For simple people, shepherds, bird-catchers,
girls wheeling perambulators, old women cleaning front stones. South
American Dictators, gamblers, duellists, birds, beasts and reptiles,
have been natural before him ; and the green earth and the sombre
trees and the high downs and the vast Pampas have been just them-
selves before him. He looked at them with the intent gaze of the
birJ of prey and the abandonment of the perfect lover.

IV.

Twenty-five years ago — really twenty-five years ago — I lay on mv
back on the top of the great shoulder of the downs above Lewes —
looking into the crystalline blue of the sky. There drifted above me
frail, innumerable, translucent, to an immense height, one shining
above the other, like an innumerable company of soap bubbles — the
globelike seeds of dandelions, moving hardly perceptibly at all in the
still sunlight. It was an unforgettable experience. . . . And
yet it wasn't my experience at all. I have never been on that par-
ticulai downs above Lewes, though 1 know the downs very well.
And yet I am not lying! For you see, in the 90's of last century, I

12 The Little Revie

read that passage in "Nature in Downland" — and it has become part
of my life. It is as much part of my life as my first sight of the
German lines from a down behind Albert in 1916 . . . which
is about the most unforgettable of my own experiences in the flesh.

So Mr. Hudson has given me a part of my life.
Indeed, I have a whole Hudson-life alongside my own . . . and
such great pleasure with it. That is what you mean when you say a
man is a creator ... a creative artist. He gives to the world
vicarious experience. And such immense pleasure!

I fancy that is really all there is to say — or at any rate what most
needs saying as to this very great man. I believe that, until quite
lately he was very little known in the Literary World — in that col-
oured and fantastic cockpit where the Great Writers vote themselves'
orders or diplomas, searchlight processions, cenotaphs, military funer-
als; and whence lesser writers cut each other's throats for fourpencc
and go up to Heaven clinging to the coat tails of the aforesaid Great.
But, outside that world, in the realm of the mute, Hudson must havf;
had a great many readers. I talk frequently with unlikely men in un-
likely places — with farriers in France, with N'icars in hideous North
Country towns, with doctors and chance people in mines — about
books. The Great of course they won't have heard of ; the popular
they will have read and will have forgotten or confused. But if you

mention Hudson and they happen to have read Hudson

Ah, then you will see a different expression on their faces! You
will see them become animated, earnest, with eyes alive and with
looks of affection — as one does of some one who is great, kind ; who
has taught one a great deal ; who is part of one's family and of oneself
That is a very great, a very splendid position to hold.

Hudson:
Poet Strayed into Science

by Ezra Pound

HUDSON'S art begins where any man's art is felicitous in
beginning: in an enthusiasm for his subject matter. If
we begin with "The Naturalist in La Plata" we may find
almost no "art" whatever ; there are impassioned passages,
naive literary homages, and much unevenness and a trace
of rhetoric in the writing. "The Shepherd's Life" must, at the other
end of the scale, be art of a very high order; how otherwise would one
come completely under the spell of a chaptei with no more startling
subject matter than the cat at a rural station of an undistinguished
British provincial railway.

Hudson is an excellent example of Coleridge's theorem "the miracle
that can be wrought" simply by one man's feeling something more
keenly, or knowing it more intimately than it has been, before, known.
The poet's eye and comprehension are evident in the first pages of
"The Naturalist": the living ef^gies in bronze rising out of the white
sea of the pampas. Then the uneven eloquence:

"And with the rhea go the flamingo, antique and splendid ;
and the swans in their bridal plumage ; and the rufous tina-
mou — sweet and mournful melodist of the eventide; and the
noble crested screamer. . . . These, and the other
large avians, together with the finest of its mammalians,
will shortly be lost to the pampas utterly."

"What a wail there would be in the world if a
sudden destruction were to fall on the accumulated art-
treasures of the National Gallery, and the marbles in the
British Museum, and the contents of the King's Library —
the old prints and medi;v\al illuminations! And these are
only the work of human hands and brains — impressions of

14 The Little R

e V I e w

individual genius on perishable material, immortal only in
the sense that the silken cocoon of the dead moth is so, be-
cause they continue to exist and shine when the artist's hands
and brain are dust : and man has the long day of life before
him in which to do again things like these, and better than
these, if there is any truth in evolution. But the forms of
life in the two higher vertebrate classes are Nr.lure's most
perfect work ; and the life of even a single species is of in-
calculably greater value to mankind, for what it teaches
and would continue to teach, than all the chiselled mar'les
and painted canvases the world contains; though doubtless
there are many persons who are devoted to art, but blind
to s me things greater than art, who will set me down as
a Philistine for saying so.

"And, above all others, we should protect and hold
sacred those types. Nature's masterpieces, which are first
singled out for destruction on account of their size, or
splendour, or rarity, and that false detest, ble glory which is
accorded to their successful slayers. In ancient times the
spirit of life shone brightest in these; and when others that
shared the earth with them were taken by death, they were
left, bein-z more worthy of perpetuati(,n."

One may put aside quibbles of precedence, whatever the value of
evidence of man's fineness, and in an age of pestilence like our own
there is li.ttle but the great art of the past to convince one that the
human species deserves to continue ; there can be no quarrel between
the archaeologist who wishes to hear the "music of the lost dynasty,"
or the gracious tmies of the Albigeoius, and tlie man who is so filled
with a passion of the splendour of wild things, of wild birds which:

"Like irnmortal flowers have drifted down to us on the
ocean of time . . . and their strangeness and beauty
bring to our irnaginations a dream and a picture of that un-
known world, immeasurably far removed, where man was
not; and \yhen they perish, ^orqething of gladness goes out

T he Lit t le Review 15

from nature, and the sunshine loses something of its bright-

ness.

The voice is authentic. It is the priesthood of nature. Yet if an
anthropologist may speak out of his pages to the "naturalist," it is
not only the bird and furred beast that suffer. A bloated usury, a
cowardly and snivelling politics, a disgustmg financial system, the
saddistic curse of Christianity work together, not only that an hun-
dred species of wild fowl and beast shall give way before the advance
of industry, i. e., that the plains be covered with uniform and vermin-
ous sheep, bleating in perfect social monotony; but in our alleged
"society" the same tendencies and the same urge that the bright
plumed and the fine voiced species of the genus anthropos, the favoured
of the gods, the only part of humanity worth saving, is attacked. The
milkable human cows, the shearable human ^heep are invited by the
exploiters, and all other regarded as caput lupinum, dangerous: lest
the truth should shine out in art, which ceases to be art and degen-
erates into religion and cant and superstition as soon as it has tax-
gathering priests; lest works comparable to the Cretan vases and
Assyrian lions should be reproduced and superseded.

There is no quarrel between the artist and Mr. Hudson, and he
is right in saying that there would be more "'wail" over the destruc-
tion of the British Museum than over the destruction of wild species.
Yet how little the "public" cares for either. And how can it be ex-
pected to care so long as so much of it is "at starvation level," so long
as men are taught that work is a virtue rather than enjoyment, and
so long as men render lip service to a foul institution which has per-
petuated the writing of TertuUien and of men who taught that the
human body is evil.

As long as "Christendom" is permeated with the superstition that
the human body is tainted and that the senses are not noble avenues
of "illumination," where is the basis of a glory in the colour-sense
without which the birds-wings are unapprehended, or of audition
without which the bell-cry of the crested screamers is only a noise in
the desert.

^^ T he Little Re vie

"Their strangeness and their beauty" may well go unheeded into
desuetude if there be nothing to preserve tnem but usurers and the
slaves of usury and an alleged religion which has taught the supreme
he that the splendour of the world is not a true splendour, that it is
not the garment of the gods; and which has glorified the vilest of
human imaginations, the pit of the seven great stenches, and which
still teaches the existence of this hell as a verity for the sake of scaring
little children and stupid women and of collecting dues and maintain-
ing its prestige.

My anger has perhaps carried me away from Hudson who should
have been my subject; yet his anger is germane to it. Mediaeval
Christianity had one merit, it taught that usury was an evil. But in
our day Rockefeller and the churches eat from the one manger, and
the church has so far fallen into vacuity that it does not oppose
"finance," which is nothing but a concatenation of usuries, hardly
subtle, but subtle enough to gull the sheep and cow humans.

And for the same system man is degraded, and the wild beasts
destroyed. So I have perhaps not lost my subject after all, but only
extended my author's exordium.

II.

The foregoing paragraphs can hardly be taken as introduction to
Mr. Hudson's quiet charm. He would lead us to South America;
despite the gnats and mosquitoes we would all perform the voyage
for the sake of meeting a puma, Chimbica, friend of man, the most
loyal of wildcats. And, as I am writing chis presumably for an
audience, more or less familiar with my predilections, familiar with
my loathing of sheep, my continual search for signs of intelligence in
the human race, it should be some indication of Hudson's style that
it has carried even me through a volume entitled "A Shepherd's Life,"
a title which has no metaphorical bearing, but deals literally with the
subject indicated.

"Caleb's shepherding period in Doveton came to a some-
what sudden conclusion. It was nearing the end of August
3nd he was beginning to think about the sheep which would

T h e Little Review 17

have to be taken to the 'Castle' sheep-fair on 5th October,
and it appeared strange to him," etc.

John B. Yeats has written somewhere: "I found that I was inter-
ested in the talk, not of those who told me interesting things, so much
as of those who were by natural gift truthful tellers" ; a phrase which
is as good a qualification of Hudson's work as I can find. Hudson's
books are indeed full of interesting things, of interesting "informa-
tion," yet it is all information which could, like all information what-
soever, have been made dull in the telling. But the charm is in Hud-
son's sobriety. I doubt if, apart from the "Mayor of Casterbridge,"
and "The Noble Dames," and the best of Hardy, there is anything
so true to the English countryside as Hudson's picture. F. M.
Hueffer must not be forgotten; there is his "Heart of the Country,"
and passages in other of his books to maintain the level ; and Hueffer
is perhaps at his best when he approaches most closely to Hudson's
subject matter; when he is least clever, when he is most sober in his
recording of country life.

This is not however an arranging of hierarchies and an awarding
of medals for merit. Hudson touches Hueffer when dealing with
England and Cunninghame Graham in dealing with La Plata. And
it is very foolish to wail over the decadence of English letters merely
because some of the best work of these three men is possibly ten years
old.

It is perhaps faddism and habit that causes people still to gossip of
Poe, when "El Ombu" has been written, not as a grotesque but as
tragic elegy, as the ordered telling of life as it must have happened.
And then Poe's prose? Poe's prose is as good as Hudson's in places,
and Hudson is indubitably uneven; relieved if not by hokkus at least
by the sense of the "special moment" which makes the hokku: thus his
trees like images of trees in black stone.

This image-sense is an enrichment, perhaps "dangerous" to the
unity of his style, but very welcome to the lover of revelation. And
to balance it there is the latent and never absent humour as in "Marta
Riquelme."

"What is, is; and if you talk until to-morrow you can not make it
different, ftlthough ^ov may prove yo\»r$eIf a y?ry learned person."

JV. H. Hudson

by yohn Rodker

R.HUDSON is a great writer, though not always a
perfect writer. His mask of, and his preoccupation
with, the "natural-man" would have become in time,
I do not doubt, as tedious as Henry James's continual
fuss with trivial relationships, had not Hudson's entire
output been so small that a week would be ample to get through it.*
His*' lapses; ovariotomised Burne- Jones's maidens, good-hearted
bouTtder (but a perfect dear au fond), (the natural-man again) too
mufeh' Exploited since by Mr. Wells; a Blake like "Father-of-the-
Hotr^e" belong all to his novel, "A Crystal Age." Other works are
free from them, for Hudson sprang full armed into literature with a
first novel, "The Purple Land," somewhere in his thirties. One does
not therefore talk about development when discussing Mr. Hudson.
Each new book, however different from itj, predecessor, is yet well
within his capacity. Flaubert, who started svith "Madam Bovary"
at about the same period in life, can be definitely said to have devel-
oped ; but 'The Purple Land" is in many ways more satisfying than
"El Oinbu" or "A Crystal Age"; I do not know when "A Crystal
Age" was written. It is magnificent and ingenuous in turns, its
denouement appalling.

Mr. Pound says somewhere that no tragedy is complete unless it be
contrasted with an equally plausible happy-endini. He should ap-
prove then of Mr. Hudson who to the most violent tragedy opposes
beatific probabilities. Both "A Crystal Age" and "Green Mansions"
contain unnecessary and therefore tragical tragedy of a violence to
stun the reader. The epilogue to Turgenev's "Fathers and Children"
seems to mc most like them. Both writers have much in common.
Each has the same ease in handling his medium, the same limpidity';
each the same confidence and kindliness. Their brains, too, are per-

*I note that Mr. Hudson had various scientific ragpograph? on the flora
and fauna of South America to his credit.

T he Lit tie Review 19

fectly adequate but not quite such cutting instruments that they can
take liberties with them.

In England Hudson shares only with Conrad the laurels of writing.
Both are foreigners. It should by now be an axiom that only foreign-
ers can write a live English. Their senses are not dulled by tradi-
tional thought-forms. New institutions give them seriously to think!
Their brains are brand new and respond immediately to the new
life. English is four continents and what more natural than that
they should be seduced into writing that language.

Conrad too, is preoccupied with the "natural-man," a variant on
the "inspired-idiot" which certainly seems to be an indispensable in-
gredient in great^Iiterature.

Perhaps this is why (both being natural-men) they see women
stereoscopically — very solid — once planted — planted for good ; a tight
little bomb of the best explosive. Her curious immobility, dreading,
yearning, for the spark that will send her sky high.

Again, so easily is the "natural-man" identified with one's own im-
pulses that his mere bow from however remote a stage will send the
gallery rocking. Like that wasp who to paralyse his victim must
sting it only at nine fixed places, and must therefore identify himself
with it, so Mr. Hudson identifies his creations, and his "natural-men"
with the "libido" of his readers.

Mr. Hudson can therefore afford to do his writing on the generous
side. If the phrase will about do, that is good enough. The things he
wants to say are concrete things, vital things, and it follows neces-
sarily that his writing will be vital. Everybody has seen these things,
or at any rate the next best thing. His job is rather to evoke pictures
than to create them. And once he has registered what he wants to
note his interest lapses. Were Mr. Hudson less of the "natural-
man" he would have created a conscious art rather than an inspired
one — an art not perhaps altogether satisfactory, but v(rhy quarrel with
him because he does not want to write a temptation of Saint Anthony.
In his own person Mr. Hudson points the moral of the vital decay
in English letters during the last century^ the bored policeman and a
life in towns being its probable causes. Certain it is that only Mr,

20 The Little Review

Cunninghame Graham or Conrad can be conceived of as writing the
following passage, remarkable only in its very palpable "natural-
manness." For strangely enough I do not know even one war book
which has had the vigour to say it likes killing either as retribution or
for the fun of the thing. His hero has just killed a man who was
about to disembowel him. "Joy at the terrible retribution I had been
able to inflict on the murderous wretch was the only emotion I ex-
perienced when galloping away into the darkness — such joy that I
could have sung and shouted aloud had it not seemed imprudent t^
indulge in such expressions of feeling."

This is surely the authentic Billy Farnum touch. The Wild West
endeared to an anaemic population with nothing on which to whet
its appetites. It is in another way Voltaire's "L'Ingenue." High
and low intelligences alike are seduced by it. Indeed the natural-man
is our hippopotamus. We regard it as did Butler — to our febrile
brains infinitely restful in the deliberate processes of his growth, his
solid grip on earth. And when the natural-man is projected upon
vast flowing pampas or sea the effect is psychologically as well as
physically bracing. New vitality flows in. The artist has tapped a
natural spring which we feed ourselves continually. The difficulty
then of forming an estimate of the work of Mr. Hudson is insuper-
able. At every stage one is seduced by an instinctive delight.

At the same time (and it may be unreasonably) one feels without
knowing exactly where and when that Mr. Hudson might have de-
veloped a keener insight, with more bitterness or ambition in his
method. I myself feel always that however much Hudson gets out
of his subject he does not quite get all. It is this irreducible residue
which makes Hudson almost but never quite intense enough. One
does not feel this about Turgenev, Tchekhov, Conrad.

It is perhaps here that Mr. Hudson's natural-man is not natural
enough. He has become a little too unsophisticated, his gaze has
been withdrawn from his navel and now scans the skies. That he
can show these qualities is evident, for there is a perfect chapter in
the Art of Calculated Reven'jc in "GfRen Mansions," but it appears
to be a feeling of which he Is ashamed. It ^oes not occur again. Mr

yj, H: D3.yi?^§ ^^h9 p^sse^^^^^s. but in fl'lfcr-Rt P'^^'^portiQn?' th? quaii-

T he Little Review 21

ties of Hudson, by a g^d admixture of the qualities hate, ambition,
etc., conveys a denser impression.

Perhaps the quality of ambition is not compatible with so absorbed
an interest in the Brute Creation as Mr. Hudson shows. He has
spent so much time in proving them not dumb (in a series of books
each more charming than the last), marvelling at the unanimity of
their instincts, their beauty and intelligence, that the study of man
was neglected. It is a study that may of course grow in intensity the
more it is neglected, your solitary being quite the most entertaining
critic of man; but in this case it has made Mr. Hudson too toler-
ant of man or too sorry for him to wish to scourge or flay him.
Men's treatment of the aigret inspires him to a noble fury, but where
man is concerned — dare we say it — Mr. Hudson is too reasonable.
He would no doubt reply that he has always detested vivisection.

It is illuminating to compare Mr. Hudson with another naturalist,
Mr. Fabre, on the subject of "natural selection," that bugbear of
biology. Remember that Mr. Hudson was born seventy years ago,
that he attained manhood in the full flood of materialism — Huxley,
Spencer, and a world settling down to an implicit faith in Darwinism.
Just as before Copernicus men saw the universe as so many candles
to light earth, Darwin and his disciples saw m the brute creation so
many adaptations and curious instincts which could be interpreted en-
tirely anthroraorphically. For instance, when Mr. Hudson, discuss-
ing the habits of cattle, suggests that the dying animal is killed by the
herd in a panic-stricken attempt to save it from the clutches of an
invisible enemy, he is only too reasonable. But surely this very reason-
ableness is in itself suspect. A human explanation will satisfy a
human mind, but one wants something more convincing. Obviously,
since we have only our minds, there is no means of knowing save
only by that community of instinct which enables the wasp to sting
its caterpillar in nine places,, and those the only possible nine places.
A reason which is as good an explanation as that will alone satisfy us.
Our tribute to Mr. Hudson must be that his reasons are always
amazingly plausible and show a great wealth of poetic vision.
Again Mr. Hudson: —

"Why or how animals come to be possessed of the power of emit-

The Little Review

ting pestiferous odours is a mystery: we only see that natural selection
has in some instances, chiefly among insects.'taken advantage of it to
furnish some of the weaker, more unprotected species with a means
of escape from their enemies." This is very cautious, but even so the
converse of the proposition is equally true, but one has to realise how
very important a credo was the Darwinian theory to our fathers, to
understand how harsh a tyranny it exerted on even the best minds.

Hear Fabre on the same subject— not so much the natural-man, he
was the enraged scientist. His tribute was to stand five hours in a
boiling sun feeding a wasp with caterpillars. His experiinents with
insects were holocausts, yet with what scorn he speaks of the vivi-
sector Curiosity only will explain his keenness, though he was not
blind to esthetic aspects in his insects. Whereas Hudson started on
his researches lured by the beautiful and interesting-the literary
man's science— Fabre started with an insane curiosity in the insect.
Certainly Fabre's seems the more vital impulse.

"Pour ces motifs et bien d'autres, je repousse la theorie moderne de
I'instinct Je n'y vois qu'un jet d'esprit ou la naturaliste de cabinet
peut se complaire, lui qui faQonne la monde a sa fantaisie; mais ou
I'observateur; aux prises avec la realite des choses, ne trouve seneuse
explication a rien de ce qu'il voit."

And again: —

"L'insecte aurait-il acquis son savoir-faire petit a petit d'une genera-
tion a la suivante, par une longue suite d'essais fortuits, de tatonne-
ments aveugles? Un tel ordre naitrait-il du chaos; une telle pre-
vision du hasard; une telle sapience de I'insense? Le monde est-il
soumis aux fatalites d'evolution du premier atome albumineux qui se
coagula en cellule ou bien est-il regi par une Intelligence Plus je
vois, plus j'observe, et plus cette Intelligence rayonne derriere le
mystere des choses."

This explains as little as does Hudson's "natural selection." One
has a god-the other "natural-selection": to the natural-man both i
am afraid will be uninteUigible. What is clear, however, is that .
Fabre appears to have been more profoundly exercised by the problems

The Little Review 23

he was up against. But to Hudson (and us) it seems natural for a
chapter to begin with a strongly-smelling kind of bumble-bee, go on
to the skunk and then to the deer which the gauchos believe suffo-
cates the snake by running rapidly round it continually emittmg a
stronger smell.

Mr Hudson is eminently the literary man at grips with nature;
in that way like Havelock Ellis. The result seems to be a profit and
loss account, an absorbed concentration is replaced by a cultured m-
terest, authorities are cited, relevances nosed out, still it isn t the real
thing. Occasionally exciting or beautiful passages like these reward

us: —

"Riding on the pampas one dark evening an hour after sunset, and
passing from high ground overgrown with giant thistles to a low
plain covered with long grass, bordering a stream of water, I found it
all ablaze with myriads of fireflies. I noticed that all the insects gave
out an exceptionally large brilliant light, which shone almost steadi y.
The long grass was thickly studded with them, while they literally
swarmed in the air, all moving up the valley with a singularly slow
and languid flight. When 1 galloped down into this river of phos-
phorescent fire, my horse plunged and snorted with alarm. I suc-
ceeded at length in quieting him, and then rode slowly through, com-
pelled to keep my mouth and eyes closed, so thickly did the insects
rain on to mv face. The air was laden with the sickening phosphorus
smell they emit, but when 1 had once got free of the broad fiery
zone, stretching away on either hand for miles along the moist valley,
I stood still and gazed back for some time on a scene the most won-
derful and enchanting I have ever witnessed."

On Humming Birds:

"In their plumage, as Marten long ago wrote, nature has strained
at every variety of effect and revelled in an infinitude of modifica-
tions How wonderful their garb is, with colours so varied, so in-
tense yet seemingly so evanescent! the glittering mantle of powdered
gold; the emerald green that changes to velvet black, ruby reds and
luminous scarlets; dull bronze that brightens and burns like polished

24 TheLittleReview

brass, and pale neutral tints that kindle to rose and lilac-coloured
flame. And to the glory of prismatic colouring are added feather
decorations, such as the racket plumes and downy muffs of Spathura,
the crest and frills of Lophornis, the sapphire gorget burning on the
snow-white breast of Oreotrochilus, the fiery tail of Cometes, and,
amongst grotesque forms, the long pointed crest feathers, representing
horns, and flowing white beard adorning the piebald goat-like face of
Oxypogon."

The Novels of W. H. Hudson

"The Purple Land" is his first and one of his most engaging books.
Written when the author was in his thirties, it is remarkable for its
women, sketched in romantically like those of Turgenev, yet as alive
as Madame Bovary, The brilliancy of their definition, their potential
intensity, is a quality rare in the writing of the last fifty years. The
book has great verve and is obviously the reaction of a highly impres-
sionable mind. Demetria and Dolores are very sister to the women
of Conrad. This outlook on women is I think due to long spells
of hard work and absence of women on the part of its authors; the
continual proximity of men probably helps.

This is enough to make even the shabbiest women sinister. Within
five years I am sure women of this type will form the basis of all
women in fiction.

It is full of adventure. A natural-man's book. The great heart of
the American public should wallow in it.

"South American Sketches" deals with the same tract as the last
book, and contains five stories which force me to withdraw much of
what I have said about Mr. Hudson's incapacity for vice. On the
other hand, these stories have not the inevitability of the great story,
but they are the next best things. They contain quite amazing para-
graphs.

"It happened on this march, about a month before the end, that
a soldier named Bracamonte went one day at noon to deliver a letter
from his captain to the General. Barboza was sitting in his shirt

T he Little Revie^ 25

sleeves in his tent, when the letter was handed to him, but just when
he put out his hand to take it, the man made an attempt to stab him.
The General, throwing himself back, escaped the blow, then instantly
sprang like a tiger upon his assailant, and seizing him by the wrist,
wrenched the weapon out of his hand only to strike it quick as light-
ning into the poor fool's throat. No sooner was he down than the
General, bending over him before drawing out the weapon, called to
those who had run to his assistance to get him a tumbler. When,
tumbler in hand, he lifted himself up and looked upon them, they
say that his face was of the whiteness of iron made white in the
furnace, and that his eyes were like two flames. He was mad with
rage, and cried out with a loud voice, 'Thus, in the presence of the
army do I serve the wretch who thought to shed my blood!' Then
with a furious gesture he threw down and shattered the reddened
glass, and bade them take the dead man outside the camp and leave
him stripped to the vultures."

These stories are widely varied in emotional range. Marta
Riquelme is carefully worked up to a terrible denouement.

"Green Mansions" should keep Mr. Hudson's name alive as long
as English is spoken. It is romanticism carried to the nth power.
Its milieu a charmed one. Impossible regrets assail the reader, a
new life is like a dream-series superposed upon his own. Could one
see reading as a delight and the inevitable martian to be introduced
to those pleasures, then this would be the book. No other novel is as
lyrical. It is too good to write about.

"The Crystal Age" is a Utopia, pure and simple, marred — or
rather made — just a little ridiculous by its too palpable Walter Crane
and William Morris-ness. It is, however, nobler than either of these
specialists. Reading this book one is convinced that a world of
neuters would be nobler than this we inhabit, and the extermination
of practically the entire species the best thing that could happen to it.
His conception of tiny, isolated and remote colonies, each the cus-
todian of some infinitely developed form of art, is magnificent. He
is a great dreamer.

26 The Little Review

"There dwell the children of Coradine, on the threshold of the
wind-vexed wilderness, where the stupendous columns of green glass
uphold the roof of the House of Coradine; the ocean's voice is in
their rooms, and the inland-blowing wind brings to them the salt
spray and yellow sand swept at low tide from the desolate floors of
the '^ea, and white winged birds flying from the black tempest scream
aloud in their shadowy halls. There, from the high terraces, when
the moon is at its full, we see the children of Coradine gathered
together, arrayed like no others, in shining garments of gossamer
threads, when, like thistle-down chased by eddying winds, now whirl-
ing in a cloud, now scattering far apart, they dance their moonlight
dances on the wide elaborate floors; and coming and going they pass
away, and seem to melt into the moonlight, yet ever to return again
with changeful melody and new measures. And, seeing this, all these
things in which we ourselves excel seem poor in comparison, becoming
pale in our memories. For the wind and waves, and the whiteness
and grace, has been ever with them; and the winged seed of the
thistle, and the flight of the gull, and the storm-vexed sea, flowering
in foam, and the light of the moon on sea and barren land, have
taught them this art, and a swiftness and grace which they alone
possess."

And this — the last paragraph : —

"Then a great cry, as of one who suddenly sees a black phantom,
rang out loud in the room, jarring my brain with the madness of its
terror and striking as with a hundred passionate hands on all the
hidden harps in wall and roof; and the troubled sounds came back
to me, now loud and now low, burdened with an infinite anguish and
despair, as of voices of innumerable multitudes wandering in the sun-
less desolations of space, every voice reverberating anguish and des-
pair ; and the successive reverberations lifted me like waves and
dropped me again, and the waves grew less and the sounds fainter,
then fainter still, and died in everlasting silence."

"A Little Boy Lost" is a charming story of a child who runs
from home. The plot reminds one of Kingslcy's "Water Babies."
It is an entertaining book, and children would like it, since it is
written without side.

The L ft tic Review

The Nature Books of W. H. Hudson

These are numerous. All are intensely Interesting, for he has a
tirelessly inquisitive mind. Most of these books are about birds ; he
has an especial sympathy for them. Others deal with English villages
— "A Shepherd's Life," and so on.

The South American books give us solid chunks of the life. For
us that is the best function of the naturalist. But all these books
will amply repay their reading, and I do not doubt in remembered
pleasure and the vitality drawn from the projection of a wild life
they will form a solid record for the future as permanent as anything
we have. I quoted considerably from "The Naturalist in La Plata"
at the beginning of this essay, but to deal adequately with these books
would need another essay. I feel that it is impossible to criticise
another's diary (for that is what these books are) ; it is too easy to
say he is too good, or too evil, or not enough of either and to use
that as a jumping board. He writes with charm and his deductions
are often profound and illuminating, never commonplace. His sin-
cerity cannot be questioned.

Bibliography
Th€ Naturalist in La Plata 1892. Chapman and Hall.

( Reprinted )
Birds in a Village
Idle Days in Patagonia
British Birds
Birds in London
Nature in Dowriland
Birds and Man

(Reprinted 1915)
El Ombu

(South American Sketches"
Hampshire Days
Afoot in England
Green Mansions

1903. John Dent,

1893. Chapman and Hall.

1895. Longmans and Co.

1898. Longmans Green.

1900. Longmans and Co.

1901. Longmans and Co.
Duckworth.

1902. Greenback Liby.

1903. Longmans and Co.

1903. Hutchinson and Co.

1904. Duckworth.

The Little R ev i e

A Little Boy Lost

1905.

Duckworth.

A Crystal Age

1906.

Fisher Unwin.

The Land's End

1908.

Hutchinson.

A Shepherd's Life

1909.

Methuen.^

The Purple Land

1911.

Duckworth.

Adventures Among

Birds

1913.

Hutchinson and Co.

Far Away and Long Ago

1918.

J. M. Dent and Sons.

Nine Chinese Poems of the
T'ang Dynasty

^ / (A. D. 600—900)

translated by JVitter Bynner and
S, C. Kiang Kang-Hu

A Spring Morning

by Aieng Hao-Jan

MORNING comes sweet to a sleeper in spring,
Everywhere round him the singing of birds.
And yet there was a storm last night,
And I wonder how many flowers were broken.

On a Lute

by Liu Chang-Ch'ing

The seven strings are like the voice
Of a cold wind in the pines
Singing an old beloved song
Which no one cares for any more.

T he Little Review 29

To a Strayed M u si ci an

(On meeting Li Kuei Nien in Chiang Nan)

by Tu Fu

I met you visiting Prince Ch'i

And often at Ts'ui's have heard you play,

But with spring nearly done, on the lower Yang Tsu,

I meet you again, under shaken petals.

A Moonlight Night
by Liu Fang P'ing

When the moon has colored half the house,
With the North Star at its height and the South Star setting,
I hear the first announcement of the warm air of spring
From an insect singing at my green silk window.

A New Bride

by Wang Chien

On the third day, taking place to cook,

Washing hands for the maiden soup,

I decide that not mother-in-law

But husband's young sister shall taste it first.

T h e T a II I nn

by Wang Chih-Huan

Till mountains cover the white sun
And oceans drain the yellow river,
You may add a thousand li* to your vision
By climbing one more case of stairs.

f ^ Chinese n^ile, a II, is abQut 3^ thir4 of j mile by western measure.

30 T h e Lit t le Review

The Street of Swallows*

by Liu Yii-Shi

Grasses grow wild by the Bridge of red Birds,
And low is the sun in the Street of Swallows,
Where wings, once visiting Wang and Hsieh,
Flitter now through humble dwellings,

* A Nan King street, decayed with the old capital.

As I face the Gov em men t
Examinations*

{to Chang)
by Chu Ching-Yii

\ Out go the great red waiting-hall candles.

Tomorrow in state the bride faces your parents.
She has finished her toilette, she asks of you gently
Whether her eyebrows are painted in fashion.

* On the eve of his final examination the poet hanpily addresses his friend who
has received the degree and is an expert in the subject.

Climbing to Lo Y u C emet ary*

(Before starting for Wu Hsing)
by Til Mu

I could serve in a good reign, but not now.
The lone cloud rather, the Buddhist peace.
And I mount, before fallowing river and sea.
Once more to the tomb of the Emperor Chao.

* Lo Vu is in a suburb of HsiAn, the capital of the T'ang Dynasty. Officials
and scholars liked being in the capital and not in the provinces. But here is one dis-
satisfied with his ruler and choosing to go away.

L'AMAZONE. BY GHANA ORLOFF.

Religion

by Maxwell Bodenheim

ALVIN TOR sat in his floating rowboat and read the
bible. Green waves died upon each other like a cohesive
fantasy. Each small wave rose as high as the other and
ended in a swan's neck of white interrogation. Sunlight
blinded the water as style dazes the contents of a poem,
and the air fell against one like a soothing religion. The bristling
melancholia of pine-trees lined the wide river. But Alvin Tor sat
in his floating rowboat reading the bible. He read the Songs of
Solomon and sensual pantomine made a taut stage of his face. When
not reading the Songs of Solomon he was as staidly poised as a monk's
folded arms. He had borrowed the colours of his life from that spec-
trum of hope which he called God. Different shades of green leaves
were, to him, the playful jealousies of a presence; the tossed colours
of birds became the light gestures of a lost poet. His Swedish peasant's
face had singed its dimples in a bit of sophistication, but his eyes
were undeceived. His heart was a secluded soliloquy transforming
the shouts of the world into tinkling surmises. His broad nose and
long lips were always at ease and his ruddy skin held the texture of
fresh bunting. His eyes knew the unkindled reticence of a rustic boy.
This man of one mood sat in his floating rowboat and read the
bible. He reached the mouth of the river and drifted out to sea.
The sea was a menacing lethargy of rhythm ; green swells sensed his
rowboat with dramatic leisure. A sea-gull skimmed over the water
like a haphazard adventure. Looking up from his bible Alvin Tor
saw the body of a woman floating beside his boat. With one jerk
his face swerved into blankness. The tip of his tongue met his
upper lip as though it were a fading rim of reality ; the fingers of
one hand distressed his flaxen hair. The woman floated on her
back with infinite abandon. Little ripples of green water died
fondling her body. The green swells barely lifiting her were great
rhythms disturbed by an inert discord. Sunlight, fumbling at her
bpd^, relinquished its colour, Her wet brown hair had a drugged

The Little Review

gentility: its short dark curls hugged her head with despondent
understanding. Her face had been washed to an imperturbable
transparency. It had the whiteness of reclining foam overcast with
a twinge of green— the sea had lent her its skin. Her eyes were
limply unworried and violated to gray disintegration. In separated
bits of outlines the remains of thinly impudent features were slipping
from her face. The bloated pity of black and white garments hid her
lean body. As Alvin Tor watched her, tendrils of peace gradually
interfered with the blankness on his face. His lips sustained an
unpremeditated repose; a sensitive compassion dropped the sparks of
its coming into his eyes. His clothes became a jest upon an inhuman
body. The earth of him effortlessly transcended itself in the gesture
of his arm flung out to the woman.

"Impalpable relic of a soul, the spirit you held must have severed
its shadow to preserve you forever from the waves," he said, his face
blindfolded with ecstasy, "for you grasp the water with immortal
relaxation. You are not a body — you are beauty receding into a re-
sistless seclusion."

"Kind fool, musically stifling himself in a rowboat — made kind by
the desperate tenderness of a lie— you are serenading the chopped
bodies of your emotions," said the woman.

Alvin Tor's face cracked apart and the incredulously hurrying
ghost of a child nodded, a moment, and was snuffed out. The eyes
of an ancient man drew his face into a premonition of pain.

"Mermaid of haunting despondency, what are you?" he asked.

"I am the symbol of your emotions," the woman answered.

"I made them roses stepped upon by God," said Alvin Tor.

"'I am the symbol of your emotions," said the woman.

Alvin Tor heavily dropped his raised arm, like a man smashing a
trumpet. Restless, white hands compressed the ruddy broadness of
his face. The women slid into the green swells, like exhausted magic.
Alvin Tor rowed back to the river bank.

II
A woman lifted the green window shade in her room and resent-

34 The Little Review

fully blinked at the sun-plastered clamors of a street. She turned!
to the bed lapon which another woman reclined.

"Say, wasn't that a nutty drunk we had last night," she said.
"Huggin' a bible and ravin' about waves and mermaids and a lot of
other funny stuff."

She dropped the green shade and stood against it, a moment, in the
smouldering gloom of the gloom. Her brown hair had a drugged
gentility; its short dark curlss hugged her head with despondent
understanding. Her face had been washed to an imperturbable
transparency. It had the whiteness of reclining foam overcast with
.1 tinge of green — the sea had lent her its skin.

Poems

by Mark Turbeyfill

The Metaphysical Botanists

— So it was asters?

Haven't we now

A little right to be proud ?

For in the beginning

Up there under the eaves

Our minds silently lifted

An unknown pollen

Stirred by an unpretentious breeze.

Then came the clanging of traffic,
The rattle of chains. People passed
' Like rattling chains. Hot drj^ winds
Swept over the space
Of that cloistered room.
Spiritual poverty. No fertile rains.
Could we be sure
Our thoughts would bloom?

The Little Review

-Now we are smiling proudly,
Trimmed with purple progeny
Showering down from the eaves,
From tlie window flower-boxes
An unconquered laughter.

We thought like asters

Thrown against the wind. /

Batik

Important pale asters

And leering lilies painted peach color

Writhing to a futile destination,

Vibrant, popping out in lewd insurrection

From the black border

That essays to hold them down, \

A stiff ghost tree

Rises out of a blue pond,

Spreading abroad its asteroids of foliage,

The sun-ball flares and fails

On a distant line

Like a disappointed toy balloon.

Cat-tails of yellow splintered flame

Prick up and press about

A fluted pedestal

Bearing a blossoming bowl. - "

A queer gauche bird

Perches on the rim

And drinks some venomous brew

Of which it faints and dies.

A constellation of bereaved lemon leaves

Flutters to earth in a funereal ballet
Through the limpid mist
Which descends upon this park of papier-mache.

FEMME ENCEINTE. BY GHANA ORLOFF

The Other IVoman

by Sherwood Anderson

^t 'W'AM in love with my wife," he said — a superflous remark,
~ ' as I had not questioned his attachment to the woman he

■ had married. We walked for ten minutes and then he
^^ said it again. I turned to look at him. He began to talk
and told me the tale I am now about to set down.

The thing he had on his mind happened during what must have
been the most eventful week of his life. He was to be married on
Friday afternoon. On P'riday of the week before he got a telegram
announcing his appointment to a government position. Something
else happened that made him very proud and glad. In secret he was
in the habit of writing verses and during the year before several of
them had been printed in poetry magazines. One of the societies that
give prizes for what they think the best poems published during the
year put his name at the head of their list. The story of his triumph
was printed in the newspapers of his home city, and one of them also
printed his picture.

As might have been expected, he was excited and in a rather highly
strung nervous state all during that week. Almost every evening he
went to call on his fiancee, the daughter of a judge. When he got
there the house was filled with people and many letters, telegrams
and packages were being received. He stood a little to one side and
men and women kept coming to speak with him. They congratulated
him upon his success in getting the government position and on his
achievement as a poet. Everyone seemed to be praising him, and when
he went home to bed he could not sleep. On Wednesday evening
he went to the theatre and it seemed to him that people all over the
house recognized him. Everyone nodded and smiled. After the first
act five or six men and two women left their seats to gather about
him. A little group was formed. Strangers sitting along the same
row of seats stretched their necks and looked. He had never received
so much attention before, and now a fever of expectancy took pos-
session of him.

3g The Little Review

As he explained when he told me of his experience, it was for him
an altogether abnormal time. He felt like one floating in air. When
he got into bed after seeing so many people and hearing so many
words of praise his head whirled round and round. When he closed
his eyes a crowd of people invaded his room. It seemed as though the
minds of all the people of his city were centered on himself. The
most absurd fancies took possession of him. He imagined himself
riding in a carriage through the streets of a city. Windows were
thrown open and people ran out at the doors of houses. "There he is.
That's him," they shouted, and at the words a glad cry arose. The
carriage drove into a street blocked with people. A hundred thousand
pairs of eyes looked up at him. "There you are! What a fellow
you have managed to make of yourself !" the eyes seemed to be saying.
My friend could not explain whether the excitement of the people
was due to the fact that he had written a new poem or whether, in
his new government position, he had performed some notable act.
The apartment where he lived at that time was on a street perched
along the top of a cliff far out at the edge of the city and from his
bedroom window he could look down over trees and factory roofs to
a river. As he could not sleep and as the fancies that kept crowding
in upon him only made him more excited, he got out of bed and tried
to think.

As would be natural under such circumstances, he tried to control

his thoughts, but when he sat by the window and was wide awake a
most unexpected and humiliating thing happened. The night was
clear and fine. There was a moon. He wanted to dream of the
woman who was to be his wife, think out lines for noble poems or
make plans that would affect his career. Much to his surprise his
mind refused to do anything of the sort.

At a corner of the street where he lived there was a small cigar
store and newspaper stand run by a fat man of forty and his wife,
a small active woman with bright grey eyes. In the morning he
stopped there to buy a paper before going down to the city. Some-
times he saw only the fat man, but often the man had disappeared and
the woman waited on him. She was, as he assured me at least twenty
times in telling me his tale, a very ordinary person with nothing

The Little Review 3^

special or notable about her, but for some reason he could not explain
being in her presence stirred him profoundly. During that week in
the midst of his distraction she was the only person he knew who
stood out clear and distinct in his mind. When he wanted so much
to think noble thoughts, he could think only of her. Before he knew
what was happening his imagination had taken hold of the notion of
having a love affair with the woman.

"I could not understand myself," he declared, in telling me the
story. "At night, when the city was quiet and when I should have
been asleep, I thought about her all the time. After two or three
days of that sort of thing the consciousness of her got into my daytime
thoughts. I was terribly muddled. When 1 went to see the woman
who is now my wife I found that my love for her was in no way
affected by my vagrant thoughts. There was but one woman in the
world I wanted to live with me and to be my comrade in undertaking
to improve my own character and my position in the world, but for
the moment, you see, I wanted this other woman to be in my arms.
She had worked her way into my being. On all sides people were
saying I was a big man who would do big things, and there I was.
That evening when I went to the theatre 1 walked home because I
knew I would be unable to sleep,, and to satisfy the annoying impulse
in myself I went and stood on the sidewalk before the tobacco shop.
It was a two story building, and I knew the woman lived upstairs
with her husband. For a long time I stood in the darkness with my
body pressed against the wall of the building and then I thought of
the two of them up there, no doubt in bed together. That made me
furious.

"Then I grew more furious at myself. I went home and got into
bed shaken with anger. There are certain books of verse and some
prose writings that have always moved me deeply, and so I put
several books on a table by my bed.

"The voices in the books were like the voices of the dead. I did
not hear them. The words printed on the lines would not penetrate
into my consciousness. I tried to think of the woman I loved, but
her figure had also become something far away, something with which
I for the moment seemed to have nothing to do. I rolled and tumbled

40 The Little Review

about in the bed. It was a miserable experience.

"On Thursday morning I went into the store. There stood the
woman alone. I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been
thinking of me as I had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating
smile played about the corners of her mouth. She had on a dress
made of cheap cloth, and there was a tear on the shoulder. She must
have been ten years older than myself. When I tried to put my
pennies on the glass counter behind which she stood my hand trembled
so that the pennies made a sharp rattling noise. When I spoke the
voice that came out of my throat did not sound like anything that had
ever belonged to me. It barely arose above a thick whisper. 'I
want you,' I said. 'I want you very much. Can't you run away
from your husband? Come to me at my apartment at seven to-
night.'

"The woman did come to my apartment at seven. That morning
she did not say anything at all. For a minute perhaps we stood look-
ing at each other. I had forgotten everything in the world but just
her. Then she nodded her head and I went away. Now that I think
of it I cannot remember a word I ever heard her say. She came to
my apartment at seven and it was dark. You must understand this
was in the month of October. I had not lighted a light and I had
sent my servant away.

"During that day I was no good at all. Several men came to see
me at my office, but I got all muddled up in trying to talk with them.
They attributed my rattle-headedness to my approaching marriage
and went away laughing.

"It was on that morning, just the day before my marriage, that I
got a long and very beautiful letter from my fiancee. During the
night before she also had been unable to sleep and had got out of bed
to write the letter. Everything she said in it was very sharp and
real, but she herself, as a living thing, seemed to have receded into
the distance. It seemed to me that she was like a bird, flying far away
in distant skies, and I was like a perplexed bare-footed boy standing
in the dusty road before a farm house and looking at her receding
figure. I wonder if you will understand what I mean?

"In regard to the letter. In it she, the awakening woman, poured

The Little Review 41

out her heart. She of course knew nothing of life, but she was a
woman. She lay, I suppose, in her bed feeling nervous and wrought
up as I had been doing. She realized that a great change was about
to take place in her life and was glad and afraid too. There she lay
thinking of it all. Then she got out of bed and began talking to
me on the bit of paper. She told me how afraid she was and how
glad too. Like most young women she had heard things whispered.
In the letter she was very sweet and fine. 'For a long time, after we
are married, we will forget we are a man and woman,' she wrote.
'We will be human "beings. You must remember that 1 am ignorant
and often I will be very stupid. You must love me and be very
patient and kind. When I know more, when after a long time you
have taught me the way of life, I will try to repay you. I will love
j'ou tenderly and passionately. The possibility of that is in me, or I
would not want to marry at all. I am afraid but I am also happy.
O, I am so glad our marriage time is near at hand.'

"Now you see clearly enough into what a mess I had got. In my
office, after I had read my fiancee's letter, I became at once very reso-
lute and strong. I remember that 1 got out of my chair and walked
about, proud of the fact that 1 was to be the husband of so noble a
woman. Right away I felt concerning her as I had been feeling
about myself before 1 found out what a weak thing I was. To be
sure 1 took a strong resolution that I would not be weak. At nine
that evening I had planned to run in to see my fiancee. 'I'm all right
now,' I said to myself. 'The beauty of her character has saved me
from myself. I will go home now and send the other woman away.'
In the morning I had telephoned to my servant and told him that I
did not want him to be at the apartment that evening and I now
picked up the telephone to tell him to stay at home.

"Then a thought came to me. 'I will not want him there in any
event,' I told myself. 'What will he think when he sees a woman
coming to my place on the evening before the day I am to be married ?'
I put the telephone down and prepared to go home. 'If I want my
servant out of the apartment it is because I do not want him to hear
me talk with the woman. I cannot be rude to her. 1 will have to
make some kind of an explanation,' I said to myself.

42 T he Lit tie Review

"The woman came at seven o'clock, and, as you may have guessed,
I let her in and forgot the resolution I had made. It is likely I never
had any intention of doing anything else. There was a bell on my
door, but she did not ring, but knocked very softly. It seems to me
that everything she did that evening was soft and quiet but very
determined and quick. Do I make myself clear? When she came I
was standing just within the door, where I had been standing and
waiting for a half hour. My hands were trembling as they had
trembled in the morning when her eyes looked at me and when I
tried to put tlie pennies on the counter in the store. When I opened
the door she stepped quickly in and I took her into my arms. We
stood together in the darkness. My hands no longer trembled. I
felt very happy and strong.

"Although I have tried to make everything clear I have not told
you what the woman I married is like. I have emphasized, you see,
the other woman. 1 make the blind statement that I love my wife,
and to a man of your shrewdness that means nothing at all. To tell
the truth, had I not started to speak of this matter I would feel more
comfortable. It is inevitable that I give you the impression that I
am in love with the tobacconist's wife. That's not true. To be sure
I was very conscious of her all during the week before my marriage,
but after she had come to me at my apartment she went entirely out
of my mind.

"Am I telling the truth? I am trying very hard to tell what hap-
pened to me, I am saying that I have not since that evening thought
of the woman who came to my apartment. Now, to t^U the facts of
the case, that is not true. On that evening I went to my fiancee at
nine, as she had asked me to do in her letter. In a kind of way I
cannot explain the other woman went with me. This is what I
mean — you see I had been thinking that if anything happened between
me and the tobacconist's wife I would not be able to go through with
my marriage. 'It is one thing or the other with me,' I had said to

myself.

"As a matter of fact I went to see my beloved on that evening
filled with a new faith in the outcome of our life together. I am
afraid I muddle this matter in trying to tell it. A moment ago I said

T h e Lit tl e R e V i e w 43

the other woman, the tobacconist's wife, went with me. I do not
mean she went in fact. What I am trying to say is that something
of her faith in her own desires and her courage in seeing things
through went with me. Is that clear to you? When I got to my
fiancee's house there was a crowd of people standing about. Some
were relatives from distant places I had not seen before. She looked
up quickly when I came into the room. My face must have been
radiant. I never saw her so moved. She thought her letter had
affected me deeply, and of course it had. Up she jumped and ran to
meet me. She was like a glad child. Right before the people who
turned and looked inquiringly at us, she said the thing that was in
her mind. 'O, I am so happy,' she cried. 'You have understood.
We will be two human beings. We will not have to be husband and
wife.'

"As you may suppose, everyone laughed, but I did not laugh. The
tears came into my eyes. I was so happy I wanted to shout. Perhaps
5^ou understand what I mean. In the office that day when I read the
letter my fiancee had written I had said to myself, *I will take care
of the dear little woman.' There was something smug, you see,
about that. In her house when she cried out in that way, and when
everyone laughed, what I said to myself was something like this : 'We
will take care of ourselves.' I whispered something of the sort into
her ears. To tell you the truth I had come down off my perch. The
spirit of the other woman did that to me. Before all the people
gathered about I held my fiancee close and we kissed. They thought
it very sweet of us to be so affected at the sight of each other. What
they would have thought had they known the truth about me God
only knows!

"Twice now I have said that after that evening I never thought
of the other woman at all. That is partially true but sometimes in
the evening when I am walking alone in the street or in the park as
we are walking now, and when evening comes softly and quickly as
it has come to-night, the feeling of her comes sharply into my body
and mind. After that one meeting I never saw her again. On the
next day I was married and I have never gone back into her street.
Often however as I am walking along as I am doing now, a quick

44 T h e Lit tie Review

sharp earthy feeling takes possession of me. It is as though I were a
seed in the ground and the warm rains of the spring had come. It is
as though I were not a man but a tree.

"And now you see I am married and everything is all right. My
marriage is to me a very beautiful fact. If you were to say that my
marriage is not a happy one I could call you a liar and be speaking
the absolute truth. I have tried to tell you about this other woman.
There is a kind of relief in speaking of her. I have never done it
before. I wonder why I was so silly as to be afraid that I would
give you the impression I am not in love with my wife. If I did not
instinctively trust your understanding I would not have spoken. As
the matter stands I have a little stirred myself up. To-night I shall
think of the other woman. That sometimes occurs. It will happen
after I have gone to bed. My wife sleeps in the next room to mine
and the door is always left open. There will be a moon to-night,
and when there is a moon long streaks of light fall on her bed. I shall
awake at midnight to-night. She will be lying asleep with one arm
thrown over her head.

"What is it that I am now talking about? A man does not speak
of his wife lying in bed. What I am trying so say is that, because of
this talk, I shall think of the other woman to-night. My thoughts
will not take the form they did during the week before I was married.
I will wonder what has become of the woman. For a moment I will
again feel myself holding her close. I will think that for an hour
I was closer to her than I have ever been to anyone else. Then I
will think of the time when I will be as close as that to my wife. She
is still, you see, an awakening woman. For a moment I will close
my eyes and the quick, shrewd, determined eyes of that other woman
will look into mine. My head will swim and then I will quickly
open my eyes and see again the dear woman with whom I have under-
taken to live out my life. Then I will sleep and when I awake in
the morning it will be as it was that evening when I walked out of my
dark apartment after having had the most notable experience of my
life. What I mean to say, you understand, is that, for me. when I
awake, the other woman will be utterly gone."

DANSEUSES. BY GHANA ORLOFF.

Danse Pseudomacabre

by TVilliam Carlos TVilliams

THAT which is possible is inevitable. I defend the nor-
mality of every distortion to which the flesh is susceptible,
every disease, every amputation. I challenge any who
thinks to discomfit my intelligence by limiting the import
of what I say to an expounding of a shallow morbidity,
to prove that health alone is inevitable. Until he can do that his
attack upon me will be imbecilic.

Allonsl Covimencons la danse.

The telephone is ringing. I have awakened sitting erect in bed,
unsurprised, almost uninterested, but with an overwhelming sense of
death pressing my chest together as if I had come reluctant from the
grave toward which a distorted homesickness continued to drag me,
a sense as of the end of everything. My wife still lies asleep, curled
against her pillow. Christ, Christ ! how can I ever bear to be separ-
ated from this my boon companion, to be annihilated, to have her
annihilated? How^ can men live in the face of this uncertainty?.
How can a man not go mad with grief, with apprehension?

I wonder what time it is? There's a taxi just leaving the club.
Tang, tang, tang. Finality, Three oclock.

The moon is low, its silent flame almost level among the trees,
across the budding rose garden, upon the grass.

The streets are illuminated with the moon and the useless flares
of the purple and yellow street lamps hanging from the dark each
above its little circular garden of flowers.

Hurry, hurry, hurry! Upstairs! He's dying! Oh my God, my
God, what will I do without him? I won't live! I won't — I
won't

What a face! Erysipelas. Doesn't look so bad. — In a few days
the moon will be full.

Quick! Witness this signature.^ — It's his will. — A great blubber
of a thirty year old male seated, hanging, floating erect in the center

T he Little Review 47

of the sagging doublebed spring, his long hair in a mild mass, his
body wrapped in a dawny brown wool dressing gown, a cord around
the belly, a great pudding face, the whole right side of it dirty purple,
swollen, covered with watery blebs, the right eye swollen shut. He
is trembling, wildly excited— a paper on his unsteady knees, a fountain
pen in his hand: Witness this signature! Will it be legal?— Yes, of

course. He signs. I sign after him. When the Scotch go crazy

they are worse than a Latin. The nose uninvolved. What a small
nose.

My God, I'm done for.

Oh my God, what will I do without him — ?

Kindly be quiet, madam. What sort of a way is that to talk in
the sick room? Do you want to kill him? Give him a chance, if
you please.

Is he going to die, doctor? He's only been sick a few days. His
eye started to close yesterday. He's never been sick in his life. He
has no one but his father and me. Oh, I won't live without him.

Of course when a man as full blooded as he has erysipelas

Do you think it's erysipelas?

How much does he weigh ?

Two hundred and forty pounds.

Temperature 102. That's not bad.

He won't die?!

Are you kidding me, doctor?

What for? — The moon has sunk. Almost no nose at all. Only
the Scotch have such small noses.— Follow these directions. I have
written down what you are to do.

Again the moon. Again. And why not again? It is a dance.
Everything that varies a hair's breadth from another is an invitation
to the dance. Either dance or — annihilation. There can be only the
dance or ONE. So, the next night, I enter another house. And so
I repeat the trouble of writing that which I have already written and
so I drag another human being from oblivion to serve my music.

It is a baby. There is a light at the end of a broken corridor. A
man in a pointed beard leads the way. Strong foreign accent.

48 The Little R

e vt ew

Holland Dutch. We walk through the corridor to the back of the
house. The kitchen. In the kitchen turn to the right. Someone
IS sitting back of the open bedroom door, a nose and an eye emerge
sniffing and staring, a wrinkled nose, a cavernous eye. Turn again
to the right through another door and walk toward the front of the
house. We are in the sickroom. A bed has been backed against the
corridor entry making this detour necessary.

O here you are, doctor.— British. The nurse 1 suppose.

The baby is in a smother of sheets and crumbled blankets, its head
on a pillow, a compress on its head, a large wet patch on the pillow.
The child has its left eye closed, its right partly opened. It emits a
soft whining cry continuously at every breath. It can't be more than
a few weeks old.

Do you think it's uncon.scious, doctor ?

Yes.

Will it live?— It is the mother. A great tender-eyed blond. Great
full breasts. A soft, gentleminded woman ot no mean beauty. A
blue cotton house wrapper, shoulder to ankle.

If it lives it will be an idiot perhaps. Or it will be paralysed— or
horh. It is better for it to die.

There it goes now! Tiie whining cry has stopped. The lips are
blue. The mouth puckers as for some diabolic kiss. It twitches,
twitches faster and faster, up and down. 7'he body slowly grows
rigid and begins to fold itself like a Hower closing again. The left
eye opens slowly, the eyeball is turned in so that the pupil is lost in
the angle toward the nose. The right eye remains wide open and
iixed staring forward. Meningitis. Acute. The arms are slowly
raised more and more from the sides as if in the deliberate attitude
before a mad dance, hands clenched, wrists flexed. The arms now lie
upon each other crossed at the wrists. The knees are drawn up as if
the child were squatting. The body holds this posture, the child's
belly rumbling with the huge contortion. Breath has stopped. The
body is stiff, blue. Slowly it relaxes, the whimpering cry begins again.
The left eye falls closed.

It began with that eye. It was a lovely baby. Normal in every
way. Breast fed. I have not taken him anywhere. It is only six

The Little Review 49

weeks old. How can he get it?

The pointed beard approaches: It is an infection, is it not, doctor?

Yes.

But I took him nowhere. Where could he get it?

He must have gotten it from someone who has it or carries it.
Maybe from one of you.

Will he die?

Yes, I think so.

Oh, I pray the Lord to take him.

Have you any other children ?

One girl, five, and this boy.

Well, one must wait.

Again the night. The beard has followed me to the door. He
closes the door carefully. We are alone in the night.

It is an infection.

Yes.

My wife is catholish — not I. She had him baptise. They pour
water from a can on his head, so. It run down in front over him,
there where they baptise all kinds of babies, into his eye perhaps.
It's a funny thing.

UTTLE REVIEW

Editor:
Margaret Anderson

Foreign Editors:
John Rodker Jules Remains

Advisory Beard:
jh

Discussion

Noble Words

by Maxwell Bodenheim

"I wish that the word sincerity could be dropped from the
language . . . take the sincerity of the artist. It is not his
business to be exact about life : the reality of things is not his con-
cern." jh in the Little Review.

I wish that the word insincerity could be dropped form the
language. Only inanimate objects are sincere, because they never
attempt to explain themselves. In a world animated by insincerity,
the word insincerity should be discarded with all other glaringly
apparent symbols, but the word sincerity should be retained. The
latter is threadbare but holds the fantastic virtues. Up to date I
have met a writer, a street-car conductor and a girl working in a

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 51

textile mill who were sincere. I would not even vouch for their
sincerity but I have considered it as a fascinating plausibility. These
three people were not exact about life and the reality of things did
not concern them, but this does not affect their possible sincerity.
Their words, gestures, facial expressions and physical outlines seemed
to be at all times effortlessly blended. When they smiled they were
never sad ; when they were sad they never grinned ; they never hastily
retrieved an awkward posture with a would-be brilliant word, or vice
versa ; and when they scratched their heads a genuine, dominating
doubt made their finger-nails methodical. The factory-girl did not
go to church on Sundays because Someone had made her flat-footed
and she refused to recognise the general goodness of his intentions
until he corrected his error. She wore pink waists because they
reminded her of strawberries — her favorite fruit — and when I told
her that strawberries seemed to be red she placidly informed me that
they were pink when they flavored ice-cream. When a wagon almost
ran over her it left its aftermaths of shrinking attitudes in her body,
for days. The street-car conductor played cards on Sundays; cursed
when he lost; smirked when he won; and sat without his necktie. I
once jocosely asked him why he wore neck-ties at other times.

"Them things are only for show," he answerd. "People give you
the once-over an' it makes you sore if you walk on the street without
one. Besides, the women like 'em."

He was uninteresting and sincere.

The writer did not believe his own theories on art. He constantly
abandoned them at irregular intervals but his work unfolded more
steadily. Interested in this incongruity I questioned him. When
my question made him sulkily bewildered I saw the possibility of his
sincerity. A glibly immediate answer would have made me drop the
subject. According to his words he kept his beliefs in motion because
his creative voice liked to be entertained with an acrobatic show when
not itself in motion.

INFANTS IN CRADLES ARE THE ONLY GENUINELY
SINCERE BEINGS— LIFE TO THEM IS A SLIGHTLY
OPPRESSIVE BLANK.

52 T he Lit 1 1 e Review

Ghana O r I off
by Muriel Ciolkowska

Paris, April, 1920.

MADAME Ghana Orloff's wooden statuette of an "Ama-
zone" was on view at the Salon des Independents, the
thirty-third held by this society since the war and one of
the most remarkable in its annals. The same artist had sent,' also,
the group of "Danseuses," a "Maternite," and a "Femme Enceinte."

Among these the last-named departed, in my opinion, from the
spirit which impelled the three others. It was, at any rate, in con-
tradiction with them, and if it was right the others were wrong or
visa versa. The "Femn:\e Enceinte" was deficient in that exquisite
wit, spontaneous fancy, feminine feeling and originality evidenced in
the Woman on Horseback, in that "Maternite" which, failing a
photograph, it is most regrettably impossible to reproduce here. The
"Femme Enceinte," on the other hand is the negative outcome of
cold calculation, a type of that impoverished brain-work which is met
with among certain "cubists" and other unimaginative theorists who
would compensate want of inspiration by contempt for it, substituting
ruse for intelligence bjf an appearance of scientific intervention.

The "Amazone," being reproduced here, does not require descrip-
tion. I may, nevertheless, be permitted to point out delicate flexi-
bilities in the rider's figure and the horse's neck which are distinctly
of a feminine character. In a totally different form similar finesse
distinguished the work of one of France's greatest sculptors, a woman
also. Jane Poupelet.

In the "Dancers" the feet are unexplained. "Maternite" remains
the warmest, the most unerring of Mme. Orloff's exhibited works.

At the same show another Russian, Marie Vassioieff, was conspic-
uous for some astonishing dolls, humorous portrait of contemporaries,
— M. Paul Goiret, Monsieurs and Madame Andre Salmon, M. Fer-
nand Leger, and so on, wihch are wonderfully devised and expressed.

It occurred to me that Little Review readers would be sensible to
the Qha,rm and wit pf "I^'Amazone,'' novel to sculptyr^ especially.

Interim

by Dorothy Richardson

C hapt er Ten ( Concluded]

tt n|r SN'T it?" agreed Mrs. Bailey cordially.

" "You must have been glad to get rid of the lodgers and

I have possession of the whole house."
"Yes" said Mrs. Bailey straightening the sideboard cloth.
Hearty agreement about the advantages and disadvan-
tages of boarders and then, I think it's very plucky of you and away
upstairs. A few words about the interest of having boarders to begin
getting to the door with.

"The Irishman's an interesting specimen of humanity."

"Isn't he interesting," laughed Mrs. Bailey moving further into
the room.

"It's much more interesting to have boarders than lodgers" said
Miriam moving along the pathway of freedom towards the open
door. Mrs. Bailey stood silent, watching politely. There was no
way out. Mrs. Bailey's presence would be waiting in the hall, and
upstairs, unappeased. Miriam glanced towards her without meeting
her eyes and sat limply down on the nearest chair.

"Phoo — it's rather a relief," she murmured.

Mrs. Bailey went briskly to the door and closed it and came freely
back into the room, a litle exacting figure who had seen all her selfish
rejoicing. She would get up now and walk about the room, talking
easily and eloquently about Eleanor's charm and go away leaving
Mrs. Bailey mystified and disposed of.

"My word" declared Mrs. Bailey tweaking the window curtains.
Then Bailey was ready and anxious to talk her over. After seeming
to like her so much and being so attentive and sending her off so
gaily and kindly, she had some grievance. It was not the bill. It
was a matter of opinion. Mrs. Bailey had been charmed and had yet
seen through her. Seen what? What was the everlasting secret
of Eleanor? She imagined them standing talking together, politely,

54 The Little Review

and joking and laughing. Mrs. Bailey would like Eleanor's jokes;
they would be in agreement with her own opinions about things. But
she had formed some idea of her and was ready to express it. If it
explained anything one would have to accept it, from Mrs. Bailey.
To make nice general remarks about her and enquire insincerely
about the bill would be never to get Mrs. Bailey's uninfluenced opin-
ion. She would not give it unless she were asked.

"I'm awfully sorry for her," she said in Eve's voice. That would
mean just her poverty and her few clothes and delicate health. There
could be an insincere discussion. It might end in nothing and the
mean selfish joy would still be waiting unstairs as soon as one had
forgotten that it was mean and selfish.

"So am r' said Mrs. Bailey heartily. There was anger in her face.
There really was something, some really bad opinion about Eleanor.
Mrs. Bailey thought these things more important than joyful free-
dom. She was one of those people who would do things; then there
were other people too ; then one need not trouble about what it was or
warn people against Eleanor. The world would find out and protect
itself, passing her on. If Mrs. Bailey felt there was something
wrong, no one need feel blamed for thinking so. There was. What
was it?

"I'm the last to be down on anyone in difficulties," said Mrs.
Bailey.

"Oh yes." It was coming.

"It's the way of people / look to." She stopped. If she were not
pressed she would say no more.

"Oh, by the way, Mrs. Bailey, has her bill been settled?" The
voice of Mrs. Lionel „ . . she's unsquashable my dear, abso-
lutely unsquashable. You never saw anything like it in your life.
But she's done for herself in Weston. It might finish the talk.

"That's all in order, young lady. It's not that at all."

"Oh, I know. I'm glad though."

"I had my own suspicions before 70U told me you'd be responsible.
I never thought about that."

"No, I see."

"It's the way of people."

T h e Lit tl e Re V iew 55

"Well you know I told you at once that you must have her here
at your own risk after the first week, and that I hardly knew any-
thing about her." If she had paid the two weeks so easily perhaps
Mr. Taunton was still looking after her needs. No. She would
have mentioned him. He had dropped her entirely; after all he had
said.

"I'm not blaming you, young lady." Perhaps Mrs. Bailey had
offered advice and been rebuffed in some way. There would be some
mysterious description of character; like the Norwegian
'selfish in a way I couldn't describe to you.'

"If I'd known what it was going to be I'd not have had her in the
house two days."

some man . . . who? . . . but they were
out all day and Eleanor had been with her every evening. Besides
Mrs. Bailey would sympathise with that . . . She was furi-
ously angry; "not two days." But she had been charmed. Charmed
and admiring.

"Did she flirt with some one?"

"That" said Mrs. Bailey gravely. "I can't tell you. She may have;
that's her own affair. I wouldn't necessary blame her. Everyone's
free to do as they like provided they behave themselves." Mrs. Bailey
was brushing at her skirt with downcast eyes.

This woman had opened Dr. von Heber's letter ; knew he was
coming next year; knew that he "would not have permitted" any
talk and that all her interference was meanmgless. He was coming,
carrying his suit case out of the hospital, no need for the smart edu-
cated nurses to think about him . . . taking ship
coming back. Perhaps she resented having been in the wrong.

"It was funny how she found a case so suddenly," said Miriam
drawing herself upright, careless, like a tree in the wind. She had
already forgotten she would always feel like that, her bearing altered
for ever, held up by him, like a tree in the wind, everyone powerless
to embarrass her. Poor Mrs. Bailey ...

"You see I feel I drove her to it, in a way."

Mrs. Bailey listened smiling keenly.

"Yes you see'' pursued Miriam cheerfully, "I told her she would

56 T he Lit tie Review

be all right for a week. I blamed you for that, said you were flour-
ishing and she could pay when her ship came home."

"That's what you told her, eh?"

"Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I
knew I couldn't manage more than a week, 1 advised her to apply to
the C. O. S. She said she would and seemed delighted, and when
I asked her about it later she cried and said she hadn't been. I said
she must do something and then suddenly this case appeared. Where
I don't know."

"I don't blame her for not wanting to go there."

"Why?"

"My word. I'd as soon go straight to the parish."

"Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help
the helpless you will not flaunt your name In subscription lists but
hand your money over to the C. O. S. They are the only charitable
organization that does not pauperise."

"Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don't
deny. But if he'd ever been in difficulties he might change them.
Insulting, that's my opinion. My word the questions they ask. You
can't call your soul your own."

"I didn't know that. That friend my sister brought here was
being helped by them."
. "How is Miss Henderson?"

"Perfectly happy. Being with the Greens again seems Paradise
she says, after London. She's satisfied now."

"Mts. She's a sweet young lady; them's fortunate as have her."

"Well now she's tried something else she appreciates the beautiful
home. I don't think she wants to be free."

"Quite so. Persons differ. But she's her own mistress; free to
leave."

"Of course it's nicer now. The children are at school. She's con-
fiidential companion. They all like her so much. They invented it
for her."

"And she is absolutely in Mrs. Green's confidence now. I don't
know what poor Mrs. Green would do without her. She went back
just in time for a most fearful tragedy."

The Little Review Si

"Mts; dear — dear" breathed Brs. Bailey, waiting with frowning,
calm eagerness. Miriam hesitated. It would be a long difficult story
to make Mrs. Bailey see stupid commercial wealth. She would see
wealthy people, a "gentleman," living in a large country house and
not understand Mr. Green at all; but Eve getting the bunch of keys
from the irinmonger's and writing to Bennett to find out about
Rupert Street . . . and the detective. She would have it in
her mind like a novel and never let it go. it would be a breach of
confidence. . . . She paused, not knowing what to do with
her sudden animation. It was too late to get back into being an
impartial listener, on the verge of going away. She had told every-
thing, without the interesting details. Mrs. Bailey was waiting for
them. They were still safe. She might think it was an illness or
something about a relative. The only thing to do now was to stay
and work off the unexplained animation on anything Mrs. Bailey
might choose to say.

"Well" said Mrs. Bailey presently, "to return to our friend. What
I say is, why doesn't she go to the clerg>% in her own parish ?"

"Go on the parish, m'm."

"Not necessarily on the parish. The clergy's most helpful and
sympathetic. They might tell her of those who would help her."

"They might. But it's most awfully difficult. Nobody knows
what ought to be done about these things."

"That is so. But there's a right and a wrong in everything.
There's plenty of people willing to help those that will help them-
selves. But that's very different to coming into a person's house to
try and get money out of strangers."
1 say.

"It is I say. I never felt so ashamed in my life."

"I say. How did you hear of it? Did they tell you?"

"Mrs. Hurd came to me herself."

"Mrs. Hurd. Of course; it would be."

"My word. I luas wild. And then only just come into my house."

"Yes, of course; I say."

"Tellin' them she was ill."

"She is ill you know."

58 The Little k

evtew

"There's some imagines theirselves ill. If she was anything like as
ill as I am she might have something to complain about."

"I think she's rather plucky. She doesn't want to give in. It's a
kind of illness that doesn't show much. I know her doctor. He's
a Harley Street man. He says that her kind of disorder makes it
absolutely impossible for the patient to tell the truth. I don't believe
that. It's just one of those doctory things they all repeat . . ."
What is truth said jesting Pilate and did not wait for an answer.
Their idea of truth —

"Well if she is ill why doesn't she act according?"

"Look after herself a bit. Yes. That's what she wants to do. Bu-r
not give in."

"Quite so. That's a thing a person can understand. But that
doesn't make it right to come to private people and beh"ave in the
way she has done. Strangers. I never met such conduct, nor heard
of it."

"No."

"She's got relatives I suppose; or friends."

"Well, that's just it. I don't think she has. I suppose the truth
is all her friends are tired of helping her."

"Well, I'm not judging her there. There's none can be so cruel
as relatives, a$ / know my word."

"Yes."

"They'll turn from you when you're struggling to the utmost
to help yourself, going on ill, left with four young children, your
husband cut off and not a penny/'

"Yes."

"1 agree with her there. I owe all I have, under Providence,
to my own hands and the help coming from strangers I had no claim
on. But why doesn't she act open? That's what / say and I know
it. There's alwaj's those ready to help you if you'll do your part. It's
all take and no give with some."

"Vampires. People are extraordinary."

"You'd say so if you had this house to manage."

"*1 suppose so."

"You get your eyes open. With one and another."

The Little Review 59

"I'd no idea she'd even been talking to the Hurds."
"Talk? Well I don't mind telling you now she's gone."
"Well, she won't come back again. If she ever does Mrs. Bailey
I hereby refuse all responsibility. On your head be it if you take
her in. / can't keep her."

"Well, as I say, I'm free to tell you. They used to go upstairs
into the drawn-room, mornings, after breakfast. I could hear that
woman's voice going on and on. I was up and down the stairs.
What's more she used to stop dead the minute I came in."
"Well I am sorry you've had all this."
"I'm not blaming you, young lady."
"What about all the others?"

"Rodkin and Helsing's and Gunner's out all day."
"Yes but the others? The Manns and the Irish journalist."
"She'd be clever to get anything out of any of them/'
"I wonder she didn't try Mrs. Barrow. She's kind I'm sure and
gullible."

"She's very kind no doubt in her way. Anyway she's not one of
those who live on a widow woman and pay nothing."

The old sense of the house was crumbling. To Mrs. Bailey it was
ivorry and things she could not talk about to anyone, and a few nice
people here and there. And all the time she was polite; as if she
liked them all, equally. And they were polite. Everyone was polite.
And behind it was all this. Shifts and secrets and strange charac-
ters. When they were all together at Mrs. Bailey's dinner, they
were all carrying things off, politely. Perhaps already she regretted
having sent away the lodgers.

"The doctors were nice people to have in the house."
"Wasn't they dear boys? Fevy nice gentlemen. Canadians are
the ones to my mind, though I believe as much as any in standing by
your own. But you've got to consider your interests."
"Of course."

"That's why I mean to advertise. My word those Hruds are
good friends if you like. I couldn't tell you. The old man's put an
advert for me in the Canadian place in the city."
"Then you'll have a houseful of Canadians."

60 The Little Revie

"That's what I hope. The more the better of their kind."

"We shall all be speaking Canadian."

"Well since we're on the subject Mrs. Hurd advises me to go to
Canada. Says it's all work and no pay over here. Everybody expects
too much for too little."

How could she rejoice in the idea of a house full of Canadians?
All the same. Canadian. It would change the house more and more.
Mrs. Bailey would not mind that. The house meant nothing to her
just as it was with its effect. She had to make it pay. If another
house would pay better she would just as soon have another house.

"You wouldn't like to leave London. There's no place like Lon-
don." The Kurd's thought everyone in the house selfish, living on
Mrs. Bailey's toil, enjoying the house for nothing, forgetting her. It
was true . . uneasy in her presence.

C h a p t er E lev en

Miriam got up early the next morning and went to her window
in her nightgown. There was a thick August haze in the square.
The air smelt moist. She leaned out into the chill of it. Her body
was full of sleep and strength; all one strength from head to foot.
She heard life in the silence, and went through her getting up as
quickly as possible, listening all the time to the fresh silence.

She went downstairs feeling like a balloon on a string; her feet
touching the stairs lightly as if there were no weight in her body. At
the end of the long journey came the smiling familiar surprise of the
hall. The hall-table was clear, a stretch of grey marble in the
morning light. The letters had been taken into the dining-room.
There was something, a package, on the far corner, a book package,
with a note, Silurian blue, Eleanor. Small straggly round hand-
writing, yes. Eleanor's, R. Rodkin, Esq: Ah. Mr. Rodkin. How
had she done it? When? Carrying off a book. Pretending she had
forgotten, and writing. Fiendish cleverness. What a blessing she
had gone. Booming through her uneasiness came a great voice from
the dining-room. Through the misty corridors of the Dawn it bel-
lowed. She went gladly in towards poetry. Mrs. Bailey was pre-

T h e Little Review 61

siding over an early breakfast. The Irishman, sitting back mirthfully
in his chair on the far side of the table and at his side a big stout
man with a bushy black beard, brilliant laughing eyes staring at noth-
ing from a flushed face. Mrs. Bailey was watching him with a
polite smile; he looked as though he were at supper; making the
room seem hot, obliterating the time of day. 1 expect you had a
rough crossing, she sad politely. I saw her, he bellowed flinging
back his head and roaring out words and laughter together. She walks
in Beauty. I saw her sandalled feet ; upon the Hills.

{Conclusion)

Ulysses

by yames yoyce

Episode XIII {Continued)

AND THEN there came out upon the air the sound of
voices and the pealing anthem of the organ. It was
the men's temperance retreat conducted by the mis-
sioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J. rosary, sermon
and benediction of the most blessed sacrament. They
were there gathered together without distinction of social class (and a
most edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the
waves after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet
of the immaculate, beseeching her to intercede for them, holy Mary,
holy virgin of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had her
father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink she might now
be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she
told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown studv
or gazing out of the window by the hour at the rain falling on the

62 The Little Revie

rusty bucket. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many
hearts and homes had cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay,
she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of violence caused by
intemperance and had seen her own father, a prey to the fumes of
intoxication, forget himself completely for if there was one thing
of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who lifts his hand
to a woman save in the way of kindness deserves to be branded as
the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the virgin most pow-
erful, virgin most merciful. And Gerty, wrapt in thought, scarce saw
or heard her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the
gentleman off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man
that was so like himself passing along the strand taking a short walk.
You ne\er saw him anyway screwed but still and for all that she
would not like him for father because he was too old or something or
on account of his face (it was a palpable case of doctor Fell) or his
carbuncly nose with the pimples on it. Poor father! With all his
faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me, Mary, how to woo
thee and they had stewed cockles and lettuce with salad dressing for
supper and when he sang The moon hath raised with Mr. Dignam
that died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a
stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and Charley was home
on his holidays and Tom and Mr, Dignam and Mrs.
and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have had a group
taken. No one would have thought the end was so near. Now he
was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a warn-
ing to him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the
funeral on account of the gout, and she had to go Into town to
bring him the letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork
line, artistic designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always
bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in
the house, a ministering angel too. And Avhen her mother had those
splitting headaches who was it rubbed on the menthol cone on her
forehead but Gerty though she didn't like her mother taking pinches
of snuff and that was the only single thing they ever had words ^bout,

T he Little Review 63

taking snuff. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at the main every
night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that place
Mr. Tunney the grocer's christmas almanac the picture of halcyon
days where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then
with a threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his lady-
love with oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. The colours
were done something lovely. She was in a soft clinging white and the
gentleman was in chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She
often looked at them dreamily when she went there for a certain
purpose and thought about those times because she had found out in
Walker's pronouncing dictionary about the halcyon days what they

meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly
fashion, till at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass
there was no getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard
as ever he could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say
poor Tommy was not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gen-
tleman in black who was sitting there by himself came to the rescue
and intercepted the ball. Our two champions claimed their play-
thing with lusty cries and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to
the gentleman to throw it to her please. The gentleman aimed the
ball once or twice and then threw it up the strand towards Cissy
Caft'rey but it rolled down the slope and stopped right under Gerty's
skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamoured again
for it and Cissy told her to kick it way and let them fight for it, so
Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn't come
rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and
Cissy laughed.
— If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent. A delicate pink crept into her pretty cheek
but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her skirt
a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly
good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down
towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else
to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She
felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MagDowell

64 The Little R

e V I e w

surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only ex-
changed glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her
new hat she ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze
there in the twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the
saddest she had ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was
wafted and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived
without stain of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable
vessel, pray for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical
rose. And careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily
bread and many who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with
contrition but for all that bright with hope for the reverend father
Hughes had told them what the great saint Bernard said in his
famous prayer of Mary, the most pious virgin's intercessory power
that it was not recorded in any age that those who implored her pow-
erful protection were ever abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles
of childhood are but as passing summer showers. Cissy played with
baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.
Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where
was Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah ! and,
my word, didn't the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him
to say papa.
— Say papa, baby, say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent
for eleven months everyone said and he would certainly turn out to be
something great they said.
— Haja ja ja haja.

Gerty wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted
him to sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the
strap she cried out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and
to double the half blanket the other way under him. Of course
his infant majesty was most obstreperous at such toilet formalities
and he let everyone know it:
— Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

It was all no use soothering him with Ro, nono, baby and telling

TheLittleReview 65

him all about the geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always
readywitted, gave him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and
the young heathen was quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby
home out of that, no hour to be out, and the little brats of twins. She
gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like a picture the evening
and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to hear
the music like that and the perfume of those incense they burned in
the church. And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it
was her he was looking at and there was meaning in his look. His
eyes burned into her as though they would search her through and
through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly
expressive, but could you trust them? She could see at once by his
dark ej^es that he was a foreigner but she could not see whether he
had an aquiline nose from where he was sitting. He was in deep
mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting sorrow
was written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what
it was. He was looking up so intensely, so still and he saw her kick
the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes
if she swung them like that thoughtfully. She was glad that some-
thing told her to put on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy
Wylie might be out but that was far away. Here was that of which
she had so often dreamed. The heart of the girl-woman went out to
him. If he had suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even,
even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not.
There were wounds that wanted healing and she just yearned to
know all, to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her,
make him forget the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would
embrace her gently, crushing her soft body to him and love her for
herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortess of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis.
Well has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and con-
stancy can never be lost or cast away : and fitly is she too a haven of
refuge for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced
her own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church,
the stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the

66 The Little Review

blue banner of the blessed virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was
helping Canon O'Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out
with his eyes cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confession-
box was so quiet and clean and dark and his hands were just like
white wax. He told her that time when she told him about that in
confession crimsoning up to the roots of her hair for fear he could
see, not to be troubled because that was only the voice of nature and
we were all subject to nature's laws, he said in this life and that
that was no sin because that came from the nature of woman insti-
tuted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady herself said to the
archangel Gabriel be it done unto me accordmg to Thy Word. He
was so kind and holy and often and otten she thought could she
work an embroidered teacosy for him as a present or a clock but they
had a clock she noticed on the mantelpiece white and gold with a
caiuiry that came out of a little house to tell the time the day she
v\'cnt there about the flowers for the forty hours' adoration because
it was hard to know what sort of a present to give or perhaps an
album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place.

The little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky threw
t'le ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little monkeys
common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them
a good hiding for themselves to keq") them m their places the both
of them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after tliem to come back
because they were afraid the tide might come in on them and be
drowned.
— Jacky ! Tcmmy !

Not they! What a gre it notion tliey had! So Ciss\ said it was
the very last time she'd e-ver bring them out. She jumped up and
called and then she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair
behind her which had a good enough colour if there had been more
of it but with all the thingamerry she was always rubbing in to it
she couldn't get it to grow long because it wasn't natural so she
could just go and throw her hat at it. She ran with \on% gandery
strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up her skirt at the side that
was too tight on her because there was a lot of the tomboy about
Cissy Cafitrey whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 67

show off and just because she was a good runner she ran like that
so that he could see all the end of her petticoat running, and her
skinm' shanks up as far as possible. It would have served her just
right if she had tripped up over something with her high French
heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. That would
have been a very charming expose for a gentleman like that to
witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all
saints, they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father
Conroy handed the thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the
incense and censed the blessed sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught
the two twins and she w^as itching to give them a good clip on the
ear but she didn't because she thought he might be watching but she
never made a bigger mistake in her life because Gerty could see with-
out looking that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon
O'Hanlon handed the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt
down looking up at the blessed sacrament and the choir began to
sing Tantiim ergo and she just swung her foot in and out in time to
the Tantumer gosa cramen turn. Three and eleven she paid for those
stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the
Monday before easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was
what he was looking at, transparent, and not at hers that had neither
shape nor form because he had eyes in his head to see the difference
for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball
with her hat anyhow on her on one side after her run and she did
look like a streel tugging the two kids along with the blouse she
bought only a fortnight before like a rag on her back. Gerty just
took off her hat for a moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a
daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a girl's shoulder
— a radiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness.
You would have to travel many a long mile before j'ou found a head
of hair the like of that. She could almost see the swift answering
flush of admiration in his eyes that set her tingling in every nerve.
She put on her hat so that she could see from underneath the brim
3nd swung her buckled shoe faster for her breath caught as she

68 The Little Revie

caught the expression in his eyes. He was eyeing her as a snake eyes
its prey. Her woman's instinct told her that she had raised the devil
in him and at the thought a burning scarlet swept from throat to
brow till the lovely colour of her face became a glorious rose,

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at
Gerty, half smiling with her specs, like an old maid, pretending to
nurse the baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be
and that was why no one could get on with her, poking her nose
into what ^as no concern of hers. And she said to Gerty :
— A penny for your thoughts.
— What, laughed Gerty. I was only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snotty-nosed twins
and their baby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she
just gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came
up Edy asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it
was half past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted
to know because they were told to be in early.

— Wait, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the
time by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him
take his hand out of his pocket, getting nervous and beginning to play
with his watchchain, looking at the church. Passionate nature though
he was Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself.
One moment he had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made
him gaze and the next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentlman,
scifcontrol expressed in every line of his distinguished-looking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind telling her what was the
right t'me and Gerty could see him taking out his watch listening to
\t j.nd looking up <';nd he said he was very sorry his watch was
stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the sun was
set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and there was a suspicion
of a quiver in the mellow tones. Cissy said thanks and came back
with her tongue out and said his waterworks were out of order.

Tlien they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon
O'Hanlon got up again and censed the blessed sacrament and knelt
down and he told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just

T h e Li t tl e Review 69

going to set fire to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled
it all right and she could see the gentleman winding his watch and
listening to the works and she swung her leg more in and out in
time. It was getting darker but he could see and he was looking all
the time that he was winding the watch or whatever he was doing to
it and then he put it back and put his hands back into his pockets.
She felt a kind of a sensation rushing all over her and she knew by
the feel of her scalp and that irritation against her stays that that
thing must be coming on because the last time too was when she
clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyes fixed them-
selves on her again, drinking in her every contour, literally wor-
shipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in
a man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man's
face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and she noticed that that little hint
she gave had the desired effect because it was a long way along the
strand to where there was the place to push up the pushcar and
Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make herself
attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his cope
poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to
read off and he read out Panem de coelo praestitisti eis and Edy and
Cissy were talking about the time all the time and asking her but
Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just answered
with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken
about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply. A
brief cold blaze shot from her eyes that spoke of scorn immeasurable.
It hurt — O yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet way of
saying things like that she knew would wound like the confounded
little cat she was. Gerty 's lips parted swiftly but she fought back the
sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless, so beautifully moulded
it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She had loved him
better than he knew. Lighthearted deceived and fickle like all his
sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an
instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their
eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled

70 T h e L it tl e R e V i e w

back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see.
— O, she laughed and the proud head flashed up. I can throw my
cap at who I like because it's leap year.

Her words rang out crystal clear, more musical than the cooing of
the ringdove but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her
young voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with.
Miss Edy's countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty could see
by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a towering
rage because that shaft had struck home and they both knew that
she was something aloof, apart in another sphere, that she was not
of them and never would be and there was somebody else too that
knew it and saw it so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy
tucked in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time
too because the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman
junior and Cissy told him too that Billy Winks was coming and that
baby was to go deedaw and baby looked just too ducky, laughing up
out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy poked him like that out of fun in
hihs wee fat tummy and baby, without as much as by your leave,
sent up his compliments to all and sundry on to his brand new
dribbling bib.
— O my! Puddney pie! protested Ciss.

The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she
set that little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and Edy asked what and
she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was flying but she
ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it off by saying
that that was the benediction because just then the bell rang out from
the steeple over the quiet seashore because Canon O'Hanlon was up
on the altar with the veil that Father Conroy put round him round
his shoulders giving the benediction with the blessed sacrament in his
hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last
glimpse of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the
same time a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk,
hither, thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the

TheLittletteview 71

lights of the lighthouses and soon the lamplighter would be going his
rounds lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used
to turn the bicycle like she read in that book The Lamplighter by
Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For
Gerty had her dreams that no one knew of. She loved to read
poetry and she got a keepsake from Bcrha Supple of that lovely con-
fession album with the coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she
laid it in the drawer of toilet-table which though it did not err on
the side of luxury, was scrupulously neat and clean. It was there
she kept her girlish treasure trove the tortoiseshell combs, her child
of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster
pouncetbox and the ribbons to change when her things came home
from the wash and there were some beautiful thoughts written in it
in violet ink that she bought in Wisdom Hesly's for she felt that she
too could write poetry if she could only express herself like that
poem she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening
round the potherbs Art thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis
J. Walshe, Magherafelt, and after there was something about
twilight, wilt thou ever? and often the beauty of poetry, so sad in its
transient loveliness had misted her eyes with silent tears that the years
were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one shortcoming
she knew she need fear no competition and that was an accident
coming down the hill and she always tried to conceal it. But it must
end she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be
no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would
make the great sacrifice. Dearer than the whole world would she
be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was the all impor-
tant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or a
widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman
with the foreign name from the land of song had to have her put
into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But even if — what then?
Would it make a very great difference? From everything in the
least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively recoiled. She loathed
that sort of person, the fallen woman off the accommodation walk
beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and coarse men, de-
grading the sex and being taken up to the police station. No, no:

72 T h e Little Re vie w

not that. They would be just good friends in spite of the conventions
of society with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in
mourning for from the days beyond recall. She thought she under-
stood. She would try to understand him because men were so
different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white hands
stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. She would follow the dic-
tates of her heart for love was the master guide. Nothing else mat-
tered. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.

{To be continued)

The Reader Critic

Ulysses"

Dear Little Revieivers:

Can you tell me when James Joyce's "Ulysses" will appear in book
form? Do you think the public will ever be ready for such a book? I
read him each month with eagerness, but I must confess that I am defeated
in my intelligence. Now tell the truth, — do you yourselves know where
the story is at the present moment, how much time has elapsed, — just
where are we? Have you any clue as to when the story will end?

["Ulysses" will probably appear in book form in America if there is a
publisher for it who will have sense enough to avoid the public. Joyce has
perfected a technique that has enabled him to avoid almost all but those
rabid for literature. We haven't any advance chapters in hand, but it
would seem that we are drawing towards the Circe episode and the close
of the story. The question of time seems simple and unobscured. The
story is laid in perhaps the talk centre of the universe, but time is not
affected ; the time of the present chapter is about five thirty or six in the
evening of the same day on which the story started, — I think Tuesday.
Mr. Bloom has had a long day since he cooked his breakfast of kidney,
but he has lost no time. — jhJ]

Batrachian

To Djuna Barnes:

I was much pleased to receive the Little Revieiv. And I immediately read
your picture of degeneracy, entitled "Oscar." I am happy to note that it in
no wise reminds me of that other Oscar (Wilde) who was worth while —
very much worth while — in spite of his errors.

The Little Review 73

I have read it through a second time and now feel sure that I read it
the first time. If I should read it a third time — I think I should read it a
fourth and even a fifth time. So 1 will not. I am satisfied already, and
desire to sleep to-night, without keeping company with all those Barn-shadows
with which you so forcefully enshroud your picture.

Of course it is a picture — not a study — of some of that morbidity which
is so prevalent during these days of the Overwrought, or Kublkul In-
sanity of the world. But it will do no real lasting good, and will not
help you to Arrive in that Field of Real Endeavor, to which you should
aspire — and pefhaps will some day, finally, enter.

Your longing to be "original," strange, compelling, is only too crudely
evident in your prose work; and by the same token, that is why you may
never hope to Achieve the Worth While, so long as you allow yourself
to be thus held down by, what I may term, your lower self. There is a
big better self — the real Djuna — asleep now, but to awaken, sometime.

This is evidenced by the real power in the things you write, in the remark-
able atmosphere of your work, in the fine power of imagination which I
find here and there in the things I have read, of yours, in this same "Oscar,"
and in the few poems I have come across in some of the magazines. Your
poetry is much the best thing you do — better artistry, as a rule. Your
prose is crude, unpolished, erratic. You should stop trying for effects for
mere effects' sake, and allow the effect to come naturally, as it surely will,
when you forget Djuna, and become the writer you may become, if you will
only see the necessity for the suppression of mere vulgar eccentricity — in
the desire to surprise — so that you may write of things as they, balanced,
are.

Why do you not ivake up to the tivist of the little Bohemia you are in,
and drop that warp — taking up the thread of the things in life that count
and ivhich must be lielped along? Then, you might become of some real
worth in life's long, hard battle — and help, where you now simply waste
your time and your gift.

[There is something batrachian in the above comment and advice. I can
see men all over America like William Jennings Bryan and Elbert Hubbard
exuding wisdom which they draw from the morass in which they sit rather
than from a brain, — men who have themselves so longer to be "original,"
"strange," "compelling," that even in the end they seek fame by exhibiting
their discardings. — ;//.]

The Modest Woman

Helen Bishop Dennis, Boston:

I notice that the first letter under the Reader Critic in your April issue
suggests that "after all these months James Joyce might be accepted, ob-
scenity and all, for .... only a few read him, and those few not just
the kind to have their whole moral natures overthrown by frankness about
natural functions."

The mistake you people make is in thinking that we "prudes" who
don't like Joyce are concerned with morals. Morality has nothing to do
with it. Does morality have anything to do with the average person's
desire for privacy concerning the "natural functions" ? Not at all ; it

74 T he Little Review

is delicacy, lack of vulgarity. I do not think we need to apologize for
this delicacy and lack of vulgarity, even to your superior beings.

There is a certain form of mental unbalance — about the lowest form —
that takes delight in concentration on the "natural functions.. . All at-
tendants in insane asylums are familiar with it. Does James Joyce belong
to those so affected? Do "the few who read him" belong? If not, and
Joyce and his readers are to be considered fairly sane, would he — and
they — be willing to perform their "natural functions" in public? If not,
why take out a desire for dabbling in filth, in writing in public?

The only cure for the nausea he causes is the thought that "only a few
read him." I think the Little Revieiv has become a disgustingly artificial
and affected publication. You started out to be sincere, unconventional, to
refuse to pander to commercialism, etc.: a wonderfully courageous and
admirable ambition. But you are a great disappointment to those of us
who hoped great things for you. 'You are like a crowd of precocious,
■'smarty cat," over-wise children, showing off. I know of no one who
has anything for you now but pity, mingled with contempt and disap-
pointment — and this from people who were once your friends and admirers.

[Yes, I think you must be right. I once knew a woman so modest that
she didn't wear underwear: she couldn't stand its being seen in the wash.]

Unpayable Debts''

C. R. S., Columbus, Ohio:

I enclose a check for your Fund. . . .

This is an opportunity to discharge in a small way a debt that would be
difficult if not impossible totally to discharge. In the Little Revieiv I learned
that I was a human through learning that others had the same thoughts and
feelings that had many years been mine, but which through a false philosophy
or teaching were regarded as deserving of repression until the light of the
Little Rei'ieiv showed them worthy of expression.

It is terrible too that, in a world of so great abundance to supply the needs
and wants of all, there must needs be so much struggle and effort and waste
to accomplish the results one aims at, even in a very limited way.

Commendable indeed are the efforts that you and your co-workers have
made in the face of so many discouraging handicaps, and that you may be
able to go on and realize to the full the object of your efforts is my earnest
wish.

G. B. M., Brooklyn:

I add this comment on your May number. It is not surprising that "in
a city of millionaires, .... the Arts go begging and penniless." When
all the economic pros and cons are in, when all the items on the long list of
the indictment against capitalism are checked off, the last overshadowing
terrifically damning charge against our present industrialism can be brought
in: — capitalism has vulgarized the world more completely than it has ever
been before. With an accent of unashamed bitterness, I ask the Little
Revieiv: What can you expect in the way of interest and financial support
from a shifting leisure class composed of those inferiors whom capitalism
forces to the top ?

WORLD
PEACE FELLOWSHIP

/^ EJECT — -To establish world peace by peaceful methods
^^ regardless of race, creed or boundary lines. To oppose all
wars, combat militarism, and speed world disarmament.

To oppose all profiteering at human expense whether on
the field of industry or that of battle. To study, reveal and
publish the cost of violence to humanity realizing that reason
and good will must triumph to secure a perfect and happy
race,

ENDORSERS

(List Incomplete)

Abbey Scott Baker, B. M. Langdon Davies— England,

Madeleine Z. Doty, W. E. B. DuBois, Monica

Ewer— England, W. E. Ewer— England, Mrs. Alfred Hayes,

Miss Jessie Hughan, Joseph Jablonower, Mrs. Marietta

Johnson, Charles Lanier, Henry R. Linville, Mary MacArthur

—England, Marjorie Manas— England,

Rev. Geo. F. Miller, Mrs. Daniel O'Day, Robert

A. Parker, Kate O. Petersen, Mr. and Mrs. Royal

— France, Rev. Norman Thomas

I endorse this program and will allow the use of my name
with the understanding that it entails no further obligations.

Name

Address

Address all commufiications:

MRS. J. SERGEANT CRAM, P. O. Box No. 4, Station Y,

New York City, N. Y.

76 The Little Review

Are there lyOOO people in America

It is not realized that the "Little Review" alone
in Aynerica is performing a function performed by
at least a dozen reviews in France and by eight or
ten in England.

N a city of millionaires, nearly all of whom make some strong
pretense of being interested in the Arts, we have been pub-
lishing for three years the only magazine that has a legitimate
and sympathetic connection with the artist.

Any professional or business man, any statesman of intelligence,
will admit that in the last analysis it is the Arts, and the Arts alone,
that give lustre to a nation. And yet in this country, most glar-
ingly lacking in lustre, the Arts go begging and penniless.

Oppressed at every turn by a new financial difficulty, we have
been able in spite of this to establish some intellectual communication
between England, France and America by presenting the best of the
creative work produced in those countries today.

The amount of money we need, our other

assets being so strong, is $5,000. If we

can obtain this sum for one year we

can push through an advertising

campaign that will carry us along,

making it possible to meet the

criminally increased cost of

publication and to pay our

contributors somewhat.

The Little Review 77

w/)o will give $5, apiece to our fund?

Never

before in A

m eric a

has

there

been

such

up-push

of the creative imp

ulse,

and

never

has

the

materialistic vision so

eclipsed the desire for

Art

and

even the

appreciation

of it.

VERY artist realizes that as long as we exist there is one
magazine in America in which he may present himself
to his audience directly, uncensored, and unhindered by
a "policy." The Little Review is the one Freie Biihne
in the country.

It is also the one Art project that has shown by its vicissitudes,
its incorruptibility and its endurance, the essential need for such a
magazine.

But the situation today is almost insurmountable. The present
format of the magazine costs us just four times as much as formerly.
We must meet this deficit, and we must pay our contributors.

Make checks payable to the Little Review
Fund, 27 ff'est Eighth Street. If you can
not send $S send any thing you can.
The smallest donation will be ap-
preciated.

Help us to attain the $5,000
mark in a month or two.
The results will interest
you.

Three Books by

Robert De Camp
Leland

of interest to the literati

Roses and Rebellion

Boards yjc

Purple Youth Boards $T
Syncopation Cloth $2

Poet and satirist, Leland, of modern
writers, best carries forward the tra-
dition of Heine. In these three
volumes you will find satire that is
authentic; art rather than vaudeville.
Innocent huftbonery undoubtedly has
its place; the unenlightened must be
entertained. But in these books by
Leland the discerning will not be
compromised.

TuhUshed at Boston by
The Poetry-Drama Company

Si jrl

I Owing to the de- I

I I

I plorable state of I

1 1

1 1 1 r

I the paper market p

I we are forced to I

P i

i make this a dou- a

fil Die number I

is^n^i^^sgmsss^gr m^ asas

THE STRADIVARIUS OF PIANOS

313 FIFTH AVENUE

NEW YORK CITY

RENEW

$lm09

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT. CIRCUT ATION. ETC.,

REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS, OF AUGUST 24, 1912.
OF THE LITTLE REVIEW, published monthly at New York, iV. V., for

April 1, 1920.

State of New York, County of New York, ss.

Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and county aforesaid, personal!}'
appeared Margaret C. Andtrson. who. having been duly sworn according to law,
deposes and says that she is the Publisher, Editor, Owner, Business Manager
of THE LITTLE REVIEW, and that the following is, to the best of her knowledge
and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management (and if a daily paper, the
circulation), etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above cap-
tion, required by the Act of August 2-1, 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws
and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form ; to wit :

1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing edllor. and
bu.siness managers are :

Publisher, Margaret C. Anderson, 27 W. Eighth St., New "S'ork ; Elito--. Margaret
C. .Anderson, 27 W. Eighth St., New York; Managing Editor. Mnrgarer C. An,lers"i,
?7 W. Eighth St., New York ; Business Manager. Margaret C. Anderson. 27 W.
Eighth St., New York.

2. That the owner is, Margaret C. Anderson.

.1. l"bat the known bondholders, mortgagees, and othe- ■■'■curity lio'ders owu'ng
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JULY-JIUGUST 1910

II NAGAZINE OF fHE MSLt

mtkmme no conmhmnisi wmi fm mibuc fAsra

THE
DIAL

A u gu s t I g 2

The Art of Poetry Richard Aldington 166

is a definitive statement of the principles and practice
of a new art. It is neither a manifesto nor an explana-
tion. It is a statement and a definition of terms which
will prove as interesting and as significant as the first
Imagiste anthology several years ago.

Six Poems William Carlos Williams 162

Illuminations Arthur Rimbaud x 181

Poems and Poems in Prose
Une Maison Emanuel Fay

Four Literary Studies Stuart Davis ■

Drawings in pencil and pen and ink
The Ci-devant Michael Arlen 125

The author's first book was a little hastily credited
to George Moore.
(All of the above in the section devoted to Modern Forms)

"Thus to Revisit ..." Ford Madox Hueffer 132

More delightful reminiscences
Thieves James Stephens 142

Shakespeare Romain Rolland 109

And twelve other titles — in art, criticism, and verse.

As always, a full magazine.

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UTTLE REYIEW

VOL. VII JULY-AUGUST No. 2

CONTENTS

Photograph of James Joyce

Magic Mary Butts

Genius

Fluctuation Anthony Wrynn

Soil

Mother Djuna Barnes

Drawing Stuart Davis

Chanson on Petit Hypertrophiquc John Rodker

Four Chronological Poems Malcolm Cowley

Black Umbrellas Ben Hecht

In the Country Robert Reiss

Poems Else von Freytag-Loringhoven

Study Charles Ellis

Discussion :

"The Public Taste"

"Dada"

May Sinclair in the "English Review"

"The Modest Woman"
Arrested Movement Jerome Blum

Ulysses (Episode XIII concluded) James Joyce

A New Testament (XI and XII) Sherwood Anderson

The Reader Critic

Subscription price, payable in advance, in fhe I'nited States and Terriiories. $2.50
per year; Single copy, 25c; Canada. $2.75; Foreign, $3.U0. Published monthly and
copyrighted, 1920, by Margaret C. Anderson.

Manuscripts must be submitted at author's risk, wi'ch return postage.

Entered as second class matter March 16, 1917, at the Post Office at New York,
N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879.

MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Publisher

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JAMES JOYCE

TNE
BTTLE REYIEW

Magic

by Mary Butts

ON the wall behind him and above his right ear a nail-head
was sunk in the plaster. When she had sat down and
tranquillised her perceptions she balanced her eyes on it
to keep the tilt of her head. The north light swam in,
upon her cheeks, exposing the shiny down of the lip, the
hollow pores on each side of the nose. In front she saw his shoulders
cutting the light square, and his bent head black against the light like
an auk's egg tilted on the top of a rock.

For ten minutes she listened to his pencil inscribing its version of
her image. Ronsard m'a celebre aux temps que j'etais belle. It had
been a sufficient sentence. She would be what she was for another ten
years, and more than that when she died. In the moment's compla-
cency her eyelids fell, and the corners of her mouth crept up.

Painters are not concerned with youth or age. They are not finally
interested in your phenomena extended in time and space. They use
it to present appearance in reality. Reality swallows phenomena and
puffs them out in patterns discerned in the arrangement of antitheses.
A good painter is free of the pain of opposites. He leads out the
arrangement in reality by hand or claw. He was examining her
pattern.

A "rapture of the intellect" stirred her. Her eyes, shifted from
the nail-head, had drawn her chin along under then). She fixed them

The Little Review

Time ran on. The plaster round the nail-head blazed and swam.
She clung to the dark point. It put out rays. The shelf above it
slid, and the books became an arbitrary prism. She stepped out of
her body. Immediately in place of his leaning shoulders, a black rock
appeared, a granite bubble, and over it trembled the black star. She
crossed the threshold of the senses, knowing that with the least ad-
justment the star and the black mountain would slide again into their
terrestrial positions. In the senses or out they were there together,
two creatures, at perception, their relation sustained by her eyes fixed
till they swarted on a black star. Why should it be black? Because
of a formula the hair rose shivering along her back.

A mountain has roots.

"That will dof"

The phrase followed her about the town. She had said first "Into
the darkness at the roots of the mountains," curtseying about the
beats. Then she considered its meaning and trimmed it into a respect-
able statement, training her ear out of its predecessor until each time
she said "mountain" and "roots" it was like a harpoon launched from
a masthead into a whale at the bottom of the sea.

The next day she walked along the cliffs to his house, shaping her
image. She had remembered that when he looked into her it was
with no ambiguity of perception. She must hurry where the pace
could not be forced. Her eyes picked up the niil-head and held

on This time she became a bird, wings out, flat against the

rock, gauging its surface, its unimaginable volume, gripping a minute
ridge with cold, clawed feet. Breast to breast with him. A feather
breast was on wrinkled stone, and could not mix. Outside the
senses she was repeating the external forms, hito the darkness at the
roots of the mountains. Abominable sing-song. Jazz to it then.
Follow him, cancel it out. A way of speaking that is good enough
for the emotions is not good enough for the plainest writing. A
great painter was at work on her. A mountain has roots. She became
a bird again. The rock was heeling over onto her, it had put out
arms. She would lie under it spatchcocked till she turned fossil.
Let him go. Give it up. She passed out the contact with her wing-
tip?,! ^n^i >Yh?ded off on a fan of whistling air, Th^r? wa? the niqun'

The Little Re vie

tain and under it deep water, stirring, fingering its side, running down,
stooping and as silently lifted up. Under that sea the mountain
had its roots. When she turned back the sea would it be resting on
a cushion of conger eels? It seemed that it was ready to be exposed.
A diving bird could not part it. The moon must be caught waxing
and the extreme spring tides. In the night the water would be drawn
back and in the morning she would see the thing it covered and agree
for the water to cover it again.

She left him, expectant to the point of tranquillity. The days
passed.

The house where he worked was down sixteen stone steps, and at the
end of a passage all of old stones oozing at the cracks. She walked
down them and looked up before leaving the uncovered air and saw a
flake of the moon left on the edge of the roof. She looked down and
saw the roots of the house were the roots of the mountain uncovered by
the moon. With the moon had risen storm, green sheets of water
were poured in shaken out and flung back, uncovering what had
been laid there from the foundation of the world. In a fury of
wind the sea was ripped back and exposed a rock, long dark, of a
precise smooth elegance, and a bird was swooping on it. The su.i
rolled over it. The sea covered it again.

^ "That's right, old mountain! You would have rolled me out if
I had not had wings."

He came out to meet her. She followed him in briskly, and settled
herself for a journey with her eyes on the nail. Under the form of a
rock she had seen him naked, a pure-shape among the basis of the
hills. In bird-shape she had freed herself of his contact. She could
now entertain it or as easily leave. She did not know the rock's
significance, but at the end of this observation would come know-
ledge, and out of knowledge power. He had explored her image.
He had seen her before she had so much as arrived at their formula.
If he reigned. She though late would reign also.

I\Iais pour regner :l faut se taire.

Behind their signatures was the source of signatures, the life which
is all life and no death, where he and his drawing moved, were
mixed, and poured out.

The Little Review

There appeared the figure of a triangle, the base given in the world.
From one known she was to complete this figure of divine geometry.
She had seen a black star. Quod superius, sicut inferive est, and this
morning it had remained obstinately a nail.

There is an abyss also. She must explore that and as readily as
the starry sky. Et pour regner il faut se taire. Accepted also.
Let it go.

Genius

by Anthony JVrynn

LIFE
Ah Life that has no end. . .
Deep,
deep within the fortress of myself
' growths-
forever.
Wander —
O wander my spirit
here

and here
through this forest of green brass.

Call-
quiver my delicate bones,
call out

O quivering heart
• in this forest \ ,.

of endless motionlessness.

\ Cool ' '

and verdant metal
passes across my sides,
and I am consecrated —

Life without death.

Fluctuation

by Anthony Wrynn

ALL morning the air was heavy with mist — early summer
mist, warm and reposing. Yet around noon it became
indoorlike and emasculating. Poised insanity of op-
pression formed in me around that hour. Slowly has it
been forming all through the morning. And the agony,
passive as it was, became so great it was the abstract suffering of an
historic Roland or Ulysses.

Eyeless, in such sodden desolation, I passed into the park and sat
with the many people that are there waiting — the detached, solitary
waiting of Roland or Ulysses.

The heat-laden mist began movement of great depth. It passed
in, and out, and through the fainting green, in and out through the
fainting people. It clushed close beneath their coats, and waists, and
carried loveblood from each of us, to the other. — Slowly I became
more free. Slowly movement began in me ; and in a moment of great
tone I kissed close the sweating mouth of a girl, deep, within my
mind.

For three days I have been alone, walking through tight Brooklyn.
Up one street — down another. Today I wandered under the burnin ^
fog up Fifth Avenue, from Union Square to here, a place of shattering
heat.

Two days passed — and I walked through the summer streets.

Today I met Clement for the last time. Madl.mad I almost went
with anaemic attempts of friendship. — It is nof a necessity — merely
a thin, grey-water dissipation, for a deformed and uncreative mind. —

I am becoming too interested.

There is not (or, is there not) one man or one woman to wnom I
can talk — to whom I can listen. The last, surely, being you.

I carry about in my book a coloured post card, to be forwarded
to some one. I keep that card ; I do pnt scad it, for since my isolation

The Little Review

is a great pressure on me I fancy, at times, it is a card to me, and
1 like that, the contact is good. Good, not because it is j^ou, for I
dislike you.

Though it's your card that I carry around, so I thought I'd tell
about it.

Today has been wet-hot, making poise within me quake, as I en-
counter beauty gone to seed. I met a boy I love greatly. He can not
requite my love. Only trees and water can requite my love.

I leave him, and pass on through the fuming streets, wet heat
clenching at my heart and holding down my wrists. Long time I
wandered, trying to keep repose of myself. Throes of sterile isola-
tions sunk deep in my throat, and I paused.

A delicate, cool air wafts across a high rock in the park — across
my temples. Very few moments pass. I create many impressions

Now I have a quiet peace for remaining day.

Soil

by^ Anthony Wi^y n n

TIGHTENING! of the air all about.
Gradual ceasing
in tension,
to pulsation
of muffled thuds.

A white flicker across some one's lips.
Four fingers come slowly into their own palm,
and clench.

The thud in a throat becomes heavier.
The thud in a thousand throats becomes heavier.
The thud in millions of throats becomes heavier. —
and a nation is at war.

The Little R e v i e

Delicately twined muscles
on legs and thighs of young men
tighten, and give,
tighten, and give.
Hands,

now nourishing the roots of trees
in other countries
execute strategies of war :
send timid notes of hope
to a dazed lover :

in among disorder of papers and linen,
for a secreted token :
hurriedly into ardent hand of some one,
then out,

through a door —
through a far away.

All day the glistening sun has been finely poised,

in its monomotion above the earth.

Quiet green has rested on the mountains.

Quiet warmth has been glowing along the ungiving pavements

of the city streets.

A calm early-summer has sunk into breasts of the people

moving about the streets of the city,
along the pathways in the mountains.

Slowly,

slowly,

powerful roots of the oaks,

gentle roots of the wheat,

lap into themselves,

into their firm centers,

the nourisment

of mouldering hands

long gone.

Mother

by Djuna Barnes

A FEEBLE light flickered in the pawn shop at twenty
nine. Usually, in the back of this shop, reading by this
light — a rickety lamp with a common green cover — sat
Lydia Passova, the mistress.

Her long heavy head was divided by straight bound
hair. Her high firm bust was made still higher and still firmer by
German corsets. She was excessively tall, due to extraordinarily long
legs. Her eyes were small, and not well focused. The left was
slightly distended from the long use of a magnifying glass.

She was middle aged, and very slow in movement, though well
balanced. She wore coral in her ears, a corkl necklace, and many
coral finger rings.

There was about her jewelry some of the tragedy of all articles that
find themselves in pawn, and she moved among the trays like the
guardians of cemetary grounds, who carry about with them some of
the lugubrious stillness of the earth on which they have been standing.

She dealt, in most part in cameos, garnets, and a great many in-
laid bracelets and cuff-links. There were a few watches however, and
silver vessels and fishing tackle and faded slippers — and when, at
night, she lit the lamp, these and the trays of precious and semi-
precious stones, and the little ivory crucifixes, one on either side of the
window, seemed to be leading a swift furtive life of their own, con-
scious of the slow pacing woman who was known to the street as
Lydia Passova, but to no thing else.

Not even to her lover — a little nervous fellow, an Englishman
quick in speech with a marked accent, a round-faced youth with a
deep soft cleft in his chin, on which grew two separate tufts of
yellow hair. His eyes were wide and pale, and his eyeteeth prominent.

He dressed in tweeds, walked with the toes in, seemed sorrowful
when not talking, laughed a great deal and was nearly always to be
found in the cafe about four of an afternoon.

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 11

When he spoke it was quick and jerky. He had spent a great deal
of his time in Europe, especially the watering places — and had man-
aged to get himself in trouble in St. Moritz, it was said, with a well-
connected family.

He liked to seem a little eccentric and managed it simply enough
while in America. He wore no hat, and liked to be found reading
the London Times under a park lamp at three in the morning.

Lydia Passova was never seen with him. She seldom left her
shop, however she was always pleased when he wanted to go any-
where: "Go" she would say, kissing, his hand, "And when you are
tired come back."

Sometimes she would make him cry. Turning around she would
look at him a little surprise, with lowered lids, and a light tighten-
ing of the mouth.

"Yes" he would say "I know I'm trivial — well then here I go,
I will leave you, not disturb you any longer!" and darting for the
door he would somehow end by weeping with his head buried in her
lap.

She would say "There, there — why are you so nervous?"

And he would laugh again: "My father was a nervous man, and my
mother was high-strung, and as for me," — he would not finish.

Sometimes he would talk to her for long hours, she seldom answer-
ing, occupied with her magnifying glass and her rings, but in t'.ie
end she was sure to send him out with ; "That's all very true I have
no doubt, now go out by yourself and think it over" — and he would
go, with something like relief, embracing her large hips with his small
strong arms.

They had knoivn each other a very short time, three or four
months. He had gone in to pawn his little gold ring, he was always
in financial straits, though his mother sent him five pounds a week;
and examining the ring Lydia Passova had been so quiet, inevitable,
necessary that it seemed as if he must have known her forever — "at
some time," as he said.

Yet they had never grown together. They remained detached and,
on her part, quiet, preoccupied.

He never knew how much she liked him. She never told him, if he

12 The Little Review

asked she would look at him in that surprised manner, drawing her
mouth together.

In the beginning he had asked her a great many times, clinging to
her, and she moved about arranging her trays with a slight smile, and
m the end lowered her hand and stroked him gently.

He immediately became excited. "Let us dance," he cried, "I
have a great capacity for happiness."

"Yes, you are very happy," she said.

"You understand don't you?" he asked abruptly.

"What?"

"That my tears are nothing, have no significance, they are just a
protective fluid— when I see anything happening that is about to effect
my happiness I cry, that's all."

"Yes," Lydia Passova said, "I understand." She turned around
reaching up to some shelves, and over her shoulder she asked "Does
it hurt?"

"No, it only frightens me. You never cry, do you?"

"No, I never cry."

That was all. He never knew where she had come from, what her
life had been, if she had or had not been married, if she had or had
not known lovers, all that she would say was "Well, you arc with me,
does that tell you nothing?" and he had to answer "No, it tells me
nothing."

When he was sitting in the cafe he often thought to himself
"there's a great woman"— and he was a little puzzled why he thought
this because his need of her was so entirely different from any need
he seemed to remember having possessed before.

There was no swagger in him about her, the swagger he had
always felt for his conquests with women. Yet there was not a
trace of shame— he was neither proud nor shy about Lydia Passova,
he was something entirely different. He could not have said him-
self what his feeling was — but it was in no way disturbing.

People had, it is true, begun to tease him:

"You're a devil with the ladies."

Where this had made him proud, now it made him uneasy.

"Now, there's a certain Lydia Passova for instance, who would

The Little Review 13

ever have thought — "

Trembling, furious he would rise.

"So, you do feel — "

He would walk away, stumbling a little among the chairs, puttinj
his hand on the back of every one on the way to the door.

Yet he could see, that in her time, Lydia Passova had been a "per-
verse" woman — there was about everything she did an economy that
must once have been a very sensitive and a very sensuous impatience,
and because of this everyone who saw her felt a personal loss.

Some times tormented, he would come running to her, stopping
abruptly, putting it to her this way :

"Somebody has said something to me."

"When— where?"

"Now, in the cafe."

"What?"

"I don't know, a reproach — "

She would say :

"We are all, unfortunately, only what we are."

She had a large and beautiful angora cat, it used to sit in the tray
of amethj'sts and opals and stare at her from very bright cold eyes.
One day it died, and calling her lover to her she said :

"Take her out and bury her." And when he had buried her he
came back, his lips twitching.

"You loved that cat — this will be a great loss."

"Have I a memory?" she inquired.

"Yes," he answered.

"Well," she said quietly, fixing her magnifying glass firmly in her
eye. "We have looked at each other, that is enough."

And then one day she died.

The caretaker of the furnace came to him, where he was sipping his
liqueur as he talked to his cousin, a pretty little blond girl, who had a
boring and comfortably provincial life, and who was beginning to
chafe.

He got up, trembling, pale, and hurried out.

The police were there, and said they thought it had been heart
failure.

14 The Little Review

She lay on the couch in the inner room. She was fully dressed, even
to her coral ornaments; her shoes were neatly tied — large bows of a
ribbed silk.

He looked down. Her small eyes were slightly open, the left, that
had used the magnifying glass, was slightly wider than the other.
For a minute she seemed quite natural. She had the look of one who
is about to say: "Sit beside me."

Then he felt the change. It was in the peculiar heaviness of the
head — sensed through despair and not touch. The high breasts
looked very still, the hands were half closed, a little helpless, as in
life — hands that were too proud to "hold." The drawn-up limb ex-
posed a black petticoat and a yellow stocking. It seemed that she had
become hard — set, as in a mould, — that she rejected everything now,
but in rejecting had bruised him with a last terrible pressure. He
moved and knelt down. He shivered. He put his closed hands to
his eyes. He could not weep.

She was an old woman, he could see that. The ceasing of that one
thing that she could still have for anyone made it simple and direct.

Something oppressed him, weighed him down, bent his shoulders,
closed his throat. He felt as one feels who has become conscious of
passion for the first time, in the presence of a relative.

He flung himself on his face, like a child.

That night, however, he wept, lying in bed, his knees drawn up.

DRAWING. BY STUART UAVIS

Chanson on Petit Hypertrophique

by John Rodker

J'entends ?non coeur qui bat
C'est iianan qui inappelle.

— Laforgue.

LIMPID efflorescence of light gradually pervaded me.
Nerve endings tingled and life buzzed continually like
bees at a hive. Very remote, systole and diastole began
quietly. Very remote and limpid, and drew nearer
until it burnt and quivered in jabs of red and green
and chocolate.

The rhythmic beat grew systematic and while before I had feared
lest it should again fade vaguely into its origins, now my fear dropped
and I could freely eat of the continuous and singing buzz of life,
rocking me endlessly through the electric blue-green night.

And the buds of my joints developed each its separate entity,
swarmed off from the parent so that I throbbed tiringly with my
eccentric regions of systole and diastole. The life in each joint grew
more potent. My existence was less individual. I was unable to
seize knowledge of my identity. My origins, clear and obvious to me
before, lost their sharpness. I could not think or be aware of myself.
Too much stress of life confused and amazed me. What was my
mother now? Willingly I would have laid hold on her entrails to
tear, had she wanted to thwart me, but she was now no longer con-
cerned to prevent me. Quietly and, to me, a little simply, she allowed
herself to be the tool of my life. Then I would hug myself with joy
in the hot close corner, as one assured of certain deliverance and who
knows there is the world for him.

Quiet and the green and red and chocolate gave place to orange
and my head was streaked with fine nets of palpitating crimson and
a nimbus of fire rose from it quivering endlessly. And like cotton-
wool it remained ever between myself ?in4 th^ gtrain^d ^^nd despairing
liejart of my mother,

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 17

I was conscious of ether, an oil bubble on its large surface — of
nebulae tenuous as my own life — at times thinner and more tenuous
even, so that I shuddered before incommunicable darkness. Again I
withdrew into my hot wet corner.

And Night came again and with more intensity. I shuddered with
foreboding feeling the parent life ebb, and yearningly and undeniably
I clutched fast to the life-giving entrails.

So for a long time.

My mother could not tell what to do. She wanted me, but hated
the thought of being tied. It was a struggle between our separate
desires for life, but hers was a losing game, for she only half wanted
to win. And the great cold gave place to great heat and that again
to great cold and the intricate scarlet threads leapt madly through me.
In anguish I could have said, "Let me go," but again she would not
and through endless periods of time held me fast adding clay to clay
with a sure yet wavering thumb.

Primeval darkness enwrapped me and the smells of steaming savan-
nahs, the green pond and the tiger's musk.

I felt nails and teeth and to tear with them.

Gradually I knew less of my mother. My prescience wavered and
fled, leaving only the memory that it had been, and like a sultry hermit
I wrapped my cloaks more tightly about me, adding cloak to cloak to
shut out the irrelevant world of my mother and her thoughts.

At certain periods the cloaks would become transparent and again
there would be remote prickly nebulae, sticking fine needles through
me. Quickly I buried myself within my cloaks and again darkness
and the urgent buzz of life, working obscurely.

And quietly and more quietly life seized me. I was aware of light,
of density and of milk.

Then grey-green electric darkness spluttered with blue sparks
between pole and pole.

[V'O

Four Horological Poems

by Ma Ic olm Co w ley
I.

IF I should go out of this room to walk
down the inevitable street, he says,
the houses would reach out after me
their long tentacular fingers groping
over the sidewalk would clutch and drag me
into respectability through these yawning doorways

(Forty a week and a small but growing savings account, a

cat and two babies, count them two)
and yet time is gnawing at the self-assurance of these houses
time is wound
like a worm devouring the entrails of these houses

O the slow combustion of plaster, O curled yellow wallpaper
tickling the ceilings
These houses will tumble like rotten fruit to the ground.

II.

And observe if you please the action

Of time upon the pedestrian world.

It runs lightly over the faces and scrawls

its signature in twisted lines under the eyes,

it strips

the flesh from the tendons and causes

the tendons themselves to dissolve into their constituent carbon and

nitrogen
it leaves t

nothing but a structure of bones two hundred
bones

strutting down the street in a business suit

The Little Review 19

two hundred female bones in crepe georgette and the empty faces dyed

with Pompeian, the rouge that beautifies,
and yet these women

wear time as lightly as a feather boa about the neck. . . .
Time is a boa about the neck of all these people
constricting slowly
see they are choking

their skin
goes dead white

under the rouge
the bones rattle

under the skin
two hundred or rather

two hundred and seven
bones

parade

down the street
wrapped

in a feather

BOA.

III.

There is nothing at all that lives in this room by day
and dust sifts down on the soiled coverlet ; dust
filters among the lace curtains making queer
amorphous bars across the avenue of escape into the sunset,
tread softly ; there are none but the dead remaining here.

But at night something wakens

in the darkness the clock

ticks viciously at every second

throbbing its heart out against a tin breast

the minutes stalk

pompously across the field of consciousness

an hour is a time unreckoned

The Little Review

precise and categorical

the seconds hammer on the wall.

At their touch the flesh disintegrates

the mind is reduced to cerebrum and cerebellum

dirty grey whorls like a ball of cotton waste

like a bundle of soiled linen, like clothes cast off and shoddy

the seconds drip from a great height

splashing against the tips of my nerves

against the shell of my insubstantial body

and each erodes like geologic rain

a bit of flesh a bit of petrified brain.

- — I shall countenance this no longer, said the Philosopher pick-
ing up the clock and hurling it out the door, and as he spoke
he heard it rolling down the circular staircase punctuating his
remarks very regularly as if it clung to rhythm as the sole
expression of life, life, I must have it, Life said the Philosopher
and

returned to his accustomed place

the room was grown so dark he could not see

and the phosphorescence of his lace curtains dissolved leaving him out
of time and space

whirled in an eddy of eternity

and yet his heart was hammering seventy beats to the minute
time was throbbing against the fine skin of his temples
time was dripping through his veins.

IV.

These skeletons which I discuss, said the philosopher,

rise at seven thirty

the rain may fiddle down outside, or the sun turn the window shades

into vulgar cloth of gold
or the snow fall or any other of the usual phenomena of the seasor\

but they rise
d-X seven thirty • -^ ^ ,

T he Little Review 21

O tin alarm clocks detonating simultaneously in hall bed-
rooms from the Battery to Yonkers from coast to coast and
agencies in all the principal cities of the world
O explosive clocks you are very evidently the symbol of some-
thing

AND the quarrel over breakfast at eight fifteen

The hurry of the trip to the subway while the hands of the clock of
the tower of the building of the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company of the greatest city of the greatest country — God's
country you know it

race past like the Bronx express.

All morning they race over their correspondence

Yours .
of the 9th received and in reply we beg to state that
all afternoon boredom seeps out of the pigeonholes of their desks
to pile up in the wastebaskets until
they are seized by a tired jubilation
at five o'clock sharp

O emotions you also have learned to punch the time clock
But if

at any time the alarm clocks failed
simultaneously to function from coast to coast and in the agencies i i

large foreign cities
then perhaps
people would forget the following emotional processes to wit

the quarrel over breakfast

the hurry

the efficiency the

boredom and

the tired jubilation
civilization would crumple like a silk hat that somebody sat on and

forget to get up
and we should be a frightfully long time straightening out the

wrinkles.

Black Umbrellas

by Be?t Hecht

LITTLE people hurry along in the dark street, their heads
tucked away under black umbrellas that float jerkily like
expiring balloons. Over them are the great buildings and

the rain.

The day is darkened and the city is without faces. A symmetrical
stream of little black arcs stretches from distance to foreground as if
emerging from a funnel. The little people drift with precision
through the wash of the rain, bundled together by the great buildings
and the sacred puerilities. The tops of their umbrellas run like waves,
clinging to each other, eddying blindly at the crossings and careening
on again with precision.

All day long the umbrellas have been moving their black and end-
less little current through the rain — a monotone of precisions, an un-
varying symbol of the unvarying. Beneath them the dresses of women
stretch themselves into thin triangles and the trousers of men reach in
unchanging diagonals for the pavement.

The little people clothed themselves in the morning with much care
and there was a stir in the bedrooms of the city, a standing before
mirrors and a determination to have, some day, more captivating
pieces of cloth to hide themselves in. Now the little triangles and
diagonals make a swarm of patterns identical as the rain and, like the
rain, the little people are pouring out of 3'esterday into tomorrow.

Life with its head hidden in an umbrella — little people with bits
of black cloth giving half outline to the impenetrable cells they ex-
change at death for wooden boxes — the rain drums and chatters about
them and the day like a dark mirror ignores them. The great build-
ings, magnificent grandfathers of the little black-arced umbrellas,
stand dutifully excluding the rain. Electric lights already spray their
circles of yellow mist upon the air. The stunted little sky of the
city — the corridor of trade and restaurant signs that almost brushes
the tops of the black umbrellas — is prematurely ablaze. A checker-

TheLittleReview 23

board flight of windows gleams out of the spatula-topped skyscrapers.
The eyes of people wandering beyond the dripping webs of umbrellas
catch sudden glimpses through the yellow spaces of the checkerboard
of little puppet worlds inhabited by parts of furniture and unex-
pected faces.

Thus the city looks and moves under an umbrella in the street. I
move with it, an old dream like a fawning beggar at my elbow. It
is the dream of the urge of life. It follows me with the eyes of dead
years. I have already given to this dream too many alms. Yet it
fawns for more. Sorrowful dream of the urge of life, insatiable men-
dicant at my elbow, its lips cajole but its eyes, deep and empty as a
skull's, stare with many deaths. We walk on and the rain carries a
whimpering into my heart — the whimpering of an old dream asking
alms.

I invent names for the half hidden faces and give meanings to them.
Adjectives are an antidote for the companion at my elbow and perhaps
some day, wearied of listening to them, he will abandon me.

There is a kinship among the black umbrellas bumbing and scrapin:;;
at each other. I observe this. And yet beneath them there are only
solitudes. The trousers of men and skirts of women move in soli-
tudes — precise little solitudes as identical as the black umbrellas ana
the rain.

Walking before me under an umbrella is a young woman. He;
face hidden from the rain is that of a rouged nun, as are the faces of
the young women of the city who mask their vacuity with roses.
She has been hurrying but now she moves more slowly. I invent a
n::me for her and a meaning. She is unaware of this for it is the
common fancy of little people swarming in streets that their solitude",
are impenetrable. Within them they move, brazenly giving them-
selves to the outrageous underworlds of thought.

So the young woman walks before me in the street, locked in her
little depths, surrounded by the secret names and images of her yes-
terdays and tomorrows. I walk, following at her elbow as an old
dream like a fawning beggar follows at mine. For it has occurred to
me that the young woman is peering out of her solitude. She has
become aware of the halloo of the rain as if it had just started.

24 TheLittleReview

It is obvious that she has been moving, aimlessly preoccupied,
through the downpour, her words following lazily upon the pretty
tracks of memory. And then the words suddenly jumbled and the
pretty tracks became a circle in a void. It is this that makes hurrying
little people abruptly slow their step and look up from the ground —
as if to recover something.

The 3"oung woman, deserted by her solitude, looked quickly about
her and perceived only the solitudes of others which though identical
are always meaningless. I observe and understand. She has for the
moment escaped from a cell, a pleasing enough cell of remembered and
expected destinations, to hnd herself free in a world of cells. Um-
brellas run by her. Legs and arms thrust themselves senselessly about
her. It is a matter of little enough importance — a young woman
staring bewildered by the rain. Yet I remain at her elbow. There
is in her bewilderment opportunity for the employment of adjectives.

Something has amazed her. In her unoccupied brain the little
world darting about under her eyes reflects itself as an unoccupied
world; an unoccupied world stripped of destinations. In the um-
brellas alone there seems a startling kinship and an even more startling
superiority of purpose. They perhaps have meanings, but the little
people under them have none. Their destinations have deserted them
and they are moving with an incongruous hurry, having neither be-
ginnings nor endings.

For moments the young woman stares. I do not know her thought
but I know that a lonesomeness has fastened upon her, that having
lost her solitude she has lost the oblivious kinship of people in crowds.
The intricate little furniture of life, her minutae of preoccupation
have vanished from her as if a light that was shining on them had
been shut off. So for this instant during which I have been observing
her she is free of the world and there is in her the terrible premonition
— for the world beats remorselessly on without her. The black um-
brellas float jerkily like expiring balloons. The long V-shaped stretch
of people crawls with continuous patience out of distance into distance.
"Nowhere nowhere," chatters the rain and in the mouth of the young
woman life lies suddenly tasteless. An old dream like a fawning
beggar is at her elbow — the dream of the urge of life that but a

The Little Review 25

moment ago was the reality of realities.

We walk on and the 3'oung woman surrounded by an unaccountable
emptiness listens with foreign ears to the rain and with scrutinizing
eyes regards the fantastic rim of her umbrella. The contours and
noises of life seem not like the contours and noises of life but like
haphazard lines and sounds without content. I employ my adjectives
and she, lost in a curious despair, feels the pain, the nostalgia for the
unknown slowly distend her breasts and sink thin-edged into the
depths of her body. As she tries to think little fears burst excitedly
in warm clouds in her throat ; keen mists lacerate and darken the little
channels of her senses. Then words form themselves and she is
saying,

"I want something. Something."

The rain drums and chatters about us. The tides of umbrellas
careen with precision along the base of the great buildings and the
lights of the city, like bits of vivid pasteboard, drift over us in the
downpour. The echo of the cry that rises from all endings burns in
my heart. Cry of the dead, passionless fever of the emptied senses
reaching for life beyond contours, I listen to the echo of its murmur
in a city street and stare into a tangle of trousers and skirts. Life is a
crafty beggar masking its dead eyes with new darknesses.

Despair with thin fingers caresses the heart of the young woman
and her senses sweep furtively the horizon of her little world and she
searches in vain for the face of her longing. "Nowhere, nowhere,"
chatters the rain. The great buildings and the little black umbrellas
say a nowhere and the long crowd in the street — the long crowd in
the street runs away.

I know the thought of the young woman. It has hurried hopefully
to the man from whose arms she has come. She images again the
delicious, thrilling hour of his talk and caresses. But as she thinks of
them quickly, frightenedly, they become a part of the puppet worlds
that lie within lights shining out of building windows.

We walk on and the young woman stares into the dark mirror of
the rain whose odours and lines give fugitive form to the mystery of
space. Under her umbrella the rouge of her cheeks like a mask slips
away and her face is white. There is a whiteness in her heart, the

26 TheLittleReview

gathering fear of one who waits for unexpected things. The echo of
the words of longing swims sickeningly in her body. From the un-
derworld of her thought demoniac impulses raise a dizzying babble.
Inanimate they burst into wild flight and yet leave her motionless.
The words of her longing have gone into her fingers and I watched
her closed hand shiver; into her legs that plunge with violence beneath
her skirt. She feels them almost coming to life in her breasts. So
she is walking swiftly again, flying from an emptiness.

We walk on until the block is ended and the young woman pauses
to smile expectantly into a shop window. She breathes deeply and
moves her umbrella aside so that the rain may wet her face. I know
of what she is thinking. There is a curious sense of guilt — the con-
fused shame of little people who turn their backs for a moment upon
life as upon a beggar, and for a moment give words to the cry that
rises from all endings.

The young woman penitent and again alive whispers to herself it
was the man from whose arms she has come. For there was no other
something. Is not love one of the finalities? So her thoughts are
again with him. Again he talks and caresses and there comes to her
the glow, the keen yearning for satiety — tor some completion — that
she calls by the name of love.

There was nothing else she wanted. The rain made her dizzy.
And yet the memory of the terror and elation that for an instant
beneath the black umbrellas created a vacuum of her solitude clings
to her like the ghost of a mysterious infidelity.

Away from the shop and it too is gone. The little black-arced
umbrellas swarm about us as if trying to fly over each other. Under
them are the faces of people safely and intelligently locked in little
solitudes. The rain drums and chatters about them, dropping walls
from their umbrellas and burying them deeper in their secret destina-
tions. To the young woman the thing in the street is again explic-
able. It requires neither words nor thought. It is rain and people,
buildings and umbrellas, lights and a shining pavement, and out of it
rises the swift urge of life.

We walk on and her hand touches mine. Her fingers close prettily
over it. We talk and her words are eager. She has been thinking of

T h e Lit tl e Re view 27

me she says and her eyes lie avidly. She struggles against a confidence,
wondering what there is to tell. It blurts forth then adroitly in a
laugh, a laugh that belongs to the orchestra of sweet sounds.

I am so happy, she says. I am so happy. The joy of return has
made her buoyant, return into her solitude with its familiar little fur-
niture among which I stand a decoration of the moment. She has
forgotten the beggar who fawned in the rain at her elbow and things
are explicable, things are clear, and have names and swing vividly
through the dark day.

We walk on, hands together, and an old dream whimpers in my
heart.

In the Country

by Robert Reiss

KID in the white grass
Fastened as a twig of moon
Onto the night that holds a glass
Eye ever before your eyes of calculation,
Remove your finger from the trees
And betray a slight sentiment;
The bus-top wind perhaps agrees

I am devoid of emulation.

In the city your optical surprise

Covers with its blackness all my skies,

But here among the sassafras

You cannot lay fingers on green grass.

Poems

by Rise von Freytag-Loringhoven

Holy Skirts

Thought about holy skirts — to tune of "Wheels are growing on
rosebushes." Beneath immovable — carved skirt of forbidding sexless-
ness — over pavement shoving — gliding — nuns have wheels.

Undisputedly ! since — beneath skirts — they are not human! Kept
carefully empty cars — running over religious track — local — express
— according to velocity of holiness through pious steam — up to
heaven !

What for —

what do they unload there —

ivhy do they runf

Senseless wicked expense on earth's provisions — pious idleness —
all idleness unless idleness before action — idleness of youth!

Start action upstairs — he?

How able do that — all of sudden — when on earth — machinery in-
suffient — weak — unable to carry — virtuous?
Virtue: staganation.
Staganation : absent contents — lifeblood — courage — action! action-n!

Why here ?
What here for — ?

To good? ah — !? hurry — speed up — run amuck — jump — beat it!
farewell ! f are-thee-well — good-bye ! bye !
ah — bye-ye-ye !

IV e — of this earth — like this earth!

make heaven here —

take steps here —

to possess bearing hereafter —

dignity.

The Little Review 29

That we know how to enter:

reception room — drawing room —

banquet hall of :

abyssmal serious jester

whimsical serene power/

Poke ribs :

old son of gun —

old acquaintance!

Kiss : knees — toes !

Home — !

Our home!

We are home !

After :

smiling grim battle —

laughter — excitement —

swordplay —

sweat —

blood !

After accomplishing —
what sent for to accomplish.
Children of His loin —
Power of power.

Marie Ida Seqiie?ice

{Gesture of soul — action-: architecture
— evolutionary)

Mine flaunting dress — mine copper hair —
Thou — purple — dark — —
Slate iris — forehead wide.

Mine lips — as shaped and chiselled after thine — •
The nose is not — mine nose is aquiline-
like tower — thine is short,

30 The Little Review

Thine hands — so imminently lovely —
Frail — faintly dimpled — tapery fingertips —
To worship — they are not the hands of me —
Nor chaste as thine ponder mine lips.

Mine scarlet heart — mine slate-green eye —

copper-sprayed star —

Are thine — profound — !

— Learned mine eyes what never thine eyes lit —

Desire incarnate — erected fit

Cradle for thine soul.

Naj' — fundamentally I am thine root —
Gyrating dizzying and high
Upon that bloodcrest — mating a galoot
Of steel and flame — making thee die.

II.

Prince Elect

And well — mine mother — do we hate — !
We ourselves — to ourselves — are costly —
Priceless — as Tormalinde on the gate —
— of death.

I — as thou before —

am prince elect to that estate —

that shone thine teeth as shells along the shore-

— of life.

Aie — proud malignant corse!

i c/5

W
<

u
><

Q
D
h

THE

UTTLE REVIEW

Editor:

Margaret Anderson

Foreign Editors:

John Rodker Jules Romains

Advisory Board
jh

Discussion

''The Public Taste'
by Mary Widney

I HAVE been puzzled by that explanatory "making no compromise
with the public taste" which appears relentlessly upon the Little
Review covers. It seems singularly obtuse for so perspicacious a
magazine. The whole spirit of the work between its covers belies the
obvious interpretation: that you are capitalizing your agnosticism —
not too delicately angling for the dilettante iconoclast. If you are
sincerely regardless of the pubjic taste why be so blatant about it?
A true contempt is impersonal — ^a true disregard cannot be cognizant
of the thing disregarded. The small boy whistling in the grave

The Little Review 33

yard — and the Little Review slapping the face of public taste. Some,
way it lacks dignity, and, what is more serious, casts aspersions on
the worthiness of the movement it espouses. I may be misunder-
standing grossly, but as I have said, I am puzzled. Won't you
explain ?

[I should like to write you a long heart-felt letter about that slogan.
It has been one of my compromises for the past three years. It came
to us, among many other precious things, from Ezra Pound.

Taste in Art is a thing that could never get my attention ; and so,
anything as casual as that taste made by the newspapers, lectures
bureaus, the fashion-art magazines, and Mr. Mencken could never
lead me to endorse the slogan. It does help, as colour, to balance the
heavy letters at the top, and it does undoubtedly save many people
their quarters.

I believe in peace and silence for and from the "masses" — a happy
undisturbed people. I don't know how this can be brought about en-
tirely. I try not to go very far into what the suffragists must be
feeling when they contemplate what public taste has chosen as pre-
sidential candidates. — ;7z.]

^'D ado" a77d Rise von Freytag
von Loringhoven
by yohn Rodker

PARIS has had Dada for five 3^ears, and we have had Else von
Freytag-Loringhoven for quite two years. But great minds
think alike and great natural truths force themselves into cog-
nition at vastly separated spots. In Else von Freytag-Loringhoven
Paris is mystically united New York.

*Our copies of Dada being temporarily lost, and Mr. Rodker's ms.
being h-ndwritten and impossible to read, we print the above with apologies
for any misquotations.

34 T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i etv

This makes clear the poem "Narin Tzarissamanilj." The president
of Dada (there are one or two but it costs 3 frs.) goes by the name
of Tristan Tzara. His photograph is intense enough to please any
one. It is possible that Else von Freytag-Loringhoven is the first
Dadaiste in New York and that the Little Review has discovered her.

Let me quote some Dada poems. The resemblance is striking:
La fibre s'etiflamme et les pyr amides

(tres vite)

aeaeaeaeaea eda s'eclarent les dignes verticales
ledah ega les torpilleurs aux fontaines
ne touchez pas sous I'orage extrarose mourir mourir
les ancres les soeurs grises et les philosophes sur
I'ultrablantique les coupoles

aegoov aaa crepuscule
derriere le pastel le perforatrices les perforatrices
hhhaa il a signe le quadruple
bregan aeaeaeaeaeaaaa.

T. Evola.

Metals form part of Mme. Loringhoven's virulent compost. Hear
the Dada's :

Tourmentes par le desir de voir leur statue a
Paris, place de I'Etoile, les presidents et pro-

prietaires du mouvement Dada pissent du bronze.
It's a pity that such impetuosity should result only in:

Begue Ventriloque

ok okokok

Dans sa vessie est remonte apres une descente en

parachute.
Le cerveau de I'aimee
CEuf a la coque de ses reves cuits
Beurre Soufre Platone
Et puis rien
Et alors. . .

Georges Ribemofit-Dessaignet,

r^ I \

The Little Review 35

ZUT

Zim ba da bruin soyais oracles

II est un nez ailette tribe de Crooks

Zinc autel eclair tartines negres

Ibidem sur le ventre en fleurs

de toutes crues sauve la Certa ■ '

En carrousel muet honore Dieu le Pere.

Dure-mere cachotterie . |

Aux sourcils f aits a I'encore souf re '

Dompte la vergue ventriloque '^'

Andre Gide a la pituite.

Paul Der?nee.

We seem to remember Marinetti at this game. Dada is different.
It says it won't take seriously (beyond coin, I mean) its lack of
seriousness. As I said before, they print each other's photographs ;
all appear young men and women of blameless lives. . . and the
most earnest intentions. Mme. Loringhoven is I feel sure to be
equally congratulated. For my taste I find her poems a little too
sweet and sentimental, but every one to his taste. In her search for
beauty she resembles Tristan Tzara whom we have already men-
tioned. This poem is without blague:

La queue du diable est une bicyclette

la morsure equatoriale dans le roc bleu

accable la nuit senteur intime de berceaux amoureux

la fleur est un reverbere poupee ecoute le mercure

qui monte

qui monte le moulin a vent accroche au viaduc

avant-hier n'est pas la ceramique des chrysanthemes
qui tourne la tete et le froid

I'heure a sonne dans ta bouche

encore un ange brise qui tombe comme un ex-
crement de vantour i

etend I'accolade sur le desert fane

lambeaux d'oreilles songees lepre fer.

Tristan Tzara.

36 T h e L it 1 1 e R e V i e w

The Little Review might adopt certain of Dada's "artichauts" for
its correspondents. "Qu'est ce qu'est beau? Qu'est ce que c'est laid?
Qu'est que c'est grand, fort, faible? Qu'est ce que c'est Car-
pentier, Renan, Foch ? Connais-pas. Qu'est ce que c'est moi 1*
Connais pas, connais pas.
or from this Manisfeste Dada :

Dada, lui, ne vent rien, rien, il faut quelque chose
par que le public dise: "nous ne comprenous rein,
rien, rien. . . Les Dadaistes ne sout rien, rien,
rien, bien certainment ils n'arriverons a rien,
rien, rien.

Francis Picabia
{qui ne sait rien, rien, rien).
This movement should capture America like a prairie fire. From
Kreymborg to Lindsay the whole modern movement is photographed
either prototype or the other thing.

They don't seem to have got Joyce, though Pound contributes
a note to the effect that

Dada No. 1. Quelques jeunes hommes intelligents
stranded in Zurich desire correspondence with
other unfortunates similarly situated — other god-
forsaken corners of the earth.

Dada Bulletin 5 Feb. Ils ont echappe. They
have got to Paris. La Bombe! La zut! —
excellsior! !

Note from an a?^ticle by May Si?7clair
171 the ^'English Review''

IF the Little Rcviezv had never printed anything but what came to
it through its foreign editor it might by this time have ranked as
an important international concern ; unfortunately it printed many
things for which Mr. Pound was not responsible, and when it tres-
passed its iniquities were laid on him. Besides he gave opportunities.
His critical manner wa§ deceptive. When the Little Review an-

The Little Review 37

nounced its Henry James number, with an article by Ezra Pound,
some of us had visions of an irresponsible and agile animal shinning
up a monument to hang by his feet from the top.

"What actually happened?

"I do not know any book yet written on Henry James of more solid
value than Mr. Pound's "Brief Note" in the Little Review."

[My experience and spiritualistic beliefs in international magazines
of art and letters make me long for May Sinclair's advice both as
an efficiency expert and as a fortune-teller.

Aside from "Ulysses" all of the work sent to us by Pound could
have gone into eight or ten numbers of the Little Review. If this
could have captured the international art consciousness we are over-
come with grief that we interfered, and frustrated what wasn't
exactly our aim: to become an "international concern." I do hold
with Miss Sinclair that if any one could have made us an international
concern it could only have been some one as American as Pound with
his same interest in and appreciation of foreign work.

We are here to trespass — we will stand by our own iniquities. We
have not trespassed in thinking that all the international writers are
not living in Europe.— j//.]

^^The Modest Woman

by Else von Freytag-Lortnghoven

Artists are aristocrats.

Artists who call themselves artists — not aristocrats — are plain work-
ing people, mixing up art with craft, in vulgar untrained brain.

Who wants us to hide our joys (Joyce?)

If I can eat I can eliminate — it is logic — it is why I eat! Mj'
machinery is built that way. Yours also — though you do not like to
think of — mention it — because you are not aristocrat.

Your skirts are too long — out of "modesty," not decoration — when
you lift them you do not do it elegantly — proudly.

Why should I — proud engineer — be ashamed of my machinery —
part of it ?

38 The Little Review

Is there any engineer of steel machinery who is? unless he runs
ramshackle one?

The stronger she works — the prouder he is !

Has he no right to talk shop? He, not you! for you are no en-
gineer! Helpless victim — pulled over gravel — dust — by that inde-
cent machine — j^our body — over life's glorious wilderness — not seeing
landscape ! Joyce is engineer ! one of boldest — most adventurous —
globetrotter — ! to talk shop is his sacred business — we want him to
— to love engine that carries him through flashing glades to his grave
— his glorious estate.

If I can write — talk — about dinner — pleasure of my palate — as
artist or as aristocrat — with my ease of manner — can afford also to
mention my ecstasies in toilet room !

If you can not — you are invited to silence — by all means!

If your ears are too vulgar — put white cotton into — in tufts —
bunches! fitting decoration! You did that — already — but why have
you to show it to the world at large? afflicted people should stay
home — ^with family — friends. You are immodest — because you are
not healthy.

Toilets are made for swift cleanliness — not modesty !

America's comfort: — sanitation — outside machinery — has made
American forget own machinery — body! He thinks of himself less
than of what should be his servant — steel machinery.

He has mixed things! For: he has no poise — no tradition. Par-
venu — ashamed of his hide — as he well might.

Slips behind smoothness — smugness — sanitation — cleanliness.

Ah ! now he is "personality" — dressed up — sorry — sanitary lout —
just from barber — smelling from barber.

That is American! it is truly disgusting to imagine him in any
"physical functions" — eating not excluded.

Eats stupidly also.

Has reason to hide — feels that — and : — because newly rich — in vast
acquisition — feels also he has something to say to everything — every-
body — as did in war — to ridicule.

Smart aleck — countrylout — in Sunday attire — strutting!

Yawning — all teeth — into space — sipping his coffee with thunder

The Little Review 39

noise — elbow on table — little finger outspread stiffly — he knows how
to behave in society !

Why — America — can you not be modest? stay back — attentive —
as wellbred child? You have so much to learn — just out of bushes!

But — you are no wellbred child — you are noisy — nosey — bad-man-
nered — assumptive.

In my opinion — I have sharp eyes — you are no child of nature —
you are changeling!

You forget, madame — that we are the masters — go by our rules.

Goethe was grandly obscene — what do you know about it? Flau-
bert — Swift — Rabelais— Arabian Nights — Bible if you please! only
difference — Bible is without humour — great stupidity! So: how
dare you strut — step out — show yourself with your cotton-tuft in ear ?

In Europe — when inferiors do not understand superiors — they re-
tire modestly — mayhap baffled — but in good manner. By that fact
— that they do not understand — they know their place. They are
not invited — of class inferior — the dance is not theirs.

They can not judge — for: they lack real manners— education- -
class.

If they are desirous of judging — sometime — they must think —
study — rise — slowly! So society is made — in Europe — slowly — ! so:
culture — so : aristocratic public.

In such public — we dance.

That attitude of the learner — the inferior — you should feel in re
gard to James Joyce.

That you do not — shows you have less inherent culture than Euro-
pean washer-lady.

Here — madame — every bank clerk meddles.

Ancient Romans had proverb — one of few great principals of
world-structure — culture: Quod licit Jovi, nun licit Bovi.

To show hidden beauty of things — there are no limitations! Only
artist can do that — that is his holy office. Stronger — braver he is —
more he will explore into depths.

His eye — ear — finger — nose — tongue — are as keen as yours dull.

Without him — without his help — you would become less than dog
— cow — worm.

40 TheLittleReview

To them nature is art — we live in civilization! You would lose
all sense of life — disintegrate into maniacs of wilderness — not into
anmals — for: animals are perfect — Nature to them — civilization to us.

Do not believe genius is without error. Ah — nay — but: without
sentimentality — pity — with relentless purpose — conviction — patience
— time.

Do not eat the Little Review.

Therein all strong angels are !

Already high scientist not any more knows how to be "ashamed" —
silent — about anything.

You can suffer that — can you not?

If not — you are dunce — even in America — should keep tongue.

What scientist can say only in impersonal detached dignified quiet-
ness — servant of God — genius can say — does — any way he first hap-
pens to feel — he is God's messenger — in him God incarnate.

I have not read "Ulysses." As story it seems impossible — to James
Joyce's style I am not yet quite developed enough — makes me diffi-
culty — too intent on my own creation — no time now.

Sometime I will read him — have no doubt — time of screams — de-
lights — dances — soul and body — as with Shakespeare.

For snatches I have had show me it is more worth while than
many a smooth coherent story by author or real genuine prominence.

The way he slings "obscenities" — handles them — never forced —
never obscene — vulgar! (thank Europe for such people — world will
advance. )

Shows him one of highest intellects — with creative power abundant
— soaring !

In fact — his obscenities — until now — are only thing I could taste
— enjoy — with abandon — his blasphemies. Pure soul of child — wis-
dom of sage — genius.

Such one you dare approach — little runt?

Whatever made you read him — Little Review — anyway?

Back to my astonishment!

You see how ridiculous you are?

Well — if not — others will.

That is why I wrote this — !

w
O

Ulysses

by yames yoyce

Episode ^ XIII [Continued)

CANON O'HANLON put the blessed sacrament back
into the tabernacle and the choir sang Laudate Dominum
omnes gentes and then he locked the tabernacle door be-
cause the benediction was over and Father Conroy
handed him his hat to put on and Edy asked was she
coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:
— O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too
over the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.
— It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they ail ran down the strand to see over the houses and the
church, helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in
it and Cissy holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't
fall running.
— Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their
beck and call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she
said she could see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened
upon her set her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment,
meeting his glance, and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion
was in that face, passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his.
At last they were left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks,
and she knew he could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a man of
honour to his fingertips. She leaned back far to look up where the
fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to
fall back looking up and there was no one to see only him and her
when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that,
supply soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the pant-
ing of his heart his hoarse breathing, because she knew about the

T h e L it 1 1 e R e V i e w 43

passion of men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her
once in secret about the gentleman lodger that was staying with them
out of the record office that had pictures cut out of papers of those
skirtdancers and she said he used to do something not very nice that
you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But this was different from
a thing like that because there was all the difference because she
could almost feel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot
touch of his handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as
you didn't do the other thing before being married and there ought
to be woman priests that would understand without telling out
and Cissy Calfrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy
look in her eyes so that she too, my dear, and besides it was on
account of that other thing coming on the way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned
back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent
and they all saw it and shouted to look, look there it was and she
leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer
was flying about through the air, a soft thing to and fro, dark. And
she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees up, up, and
they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher
and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high,
high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an
entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other
things too, nainsook knickers, four and eleven, on account of being
white and she let him and she saw that he saw and the it went so
high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every
limb from being bent so far back that he could see high up above her
knee where no-one ever and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either
to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist
the sight like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentle-
men looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have
cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to
come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow. And then a rocket
sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle
burst and it was like a sigh of O ! and everyone cried O ! O ! and it
gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and

44 The Little Review

ah ! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely !
O so soft, sweet, soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah!
She glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a glance of piteous
protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl. He was
leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he)
stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes.
What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had
called to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An
utter cad he had been! But there was an infinite store of mercy in
those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred
and sinned and wandered. That was their secret, only theirs, alone
in the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell save the
little bat that flew so softly through the evening to and fro and little
bats don't tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to
show what a great person she was: and then she cried
— Gerty Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up.
Gerty had an idea. She slipped a hand into her kerchief pocket
and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course without
letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too far to. She
rose. She had to go but they would meet again, there, and she would
dream of that till then, tomorrow. She drew herself up to her full
height. Their souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes
that reached her heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on
her sweet flowerlike face. She half smiled at him, a sweet forgiving
smile — and then they parted.

Slowly without looking back she went down the uneven strand
to Cissy, to Edy, to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Board-
man. It was darker now and there were stones and bits of wood
on the strand and slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet
dignity characteristic of her but with care and very slowly because —
because Gerty MacDowell was .
Tight boots? No. She's lame! O!

Mr. Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's
why she's left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought

TheLittleReview 45

something was wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. Glad I
didn't know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all the same.
Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such
a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right.
All kinds of crazy longings. Girl in Tranquilla convent told me
liked to smell rock oil. Sister? That's the moon. But then why don't
all women menstruate at the same time with same moon? I mean.
Depends on the time they were born, I suppose. Anyhow I got the
best of that. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That
gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife's engage-
ment in the country valise voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small
mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it
themselves. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. Catch
'em alive. O. Pity they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled
hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street :
for men only. Peeping Tom. Willie's hat and what the girls did
with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake. Lingerie
does it. Felt for the curves inside her deshabille. Excites them also
when they're. Molly. Why I bought her the violet garters. Say
a woman loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together.
O Mairy lost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for some body.
In no hurry either. Always off to a fellow when they are. Out on
spec probably. They believe in chance because like themselves. And
the others inclined to give her an odd dig. Mary and Martha. Girl
friends at school, arms round each other's necks, kissing and whis-
pering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with
whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down,
vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now
and write to me. And I'll write to yoxi. Now won't you? Molly
and Josie Powell. Then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau. O, look
who it is for the love of God ! How are you at all ? What have you
been doing with yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you.
Picking holes in each other's appearance. You're looking splendid.
Wouldn't lend each other a pinch of salt.

Ah.

Devils they are when that's coming on them. Molly often told

46 The Little Review

me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my foot. O that
way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest once in
a. way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one
way. Something about withering plants I read in a garden. Besides
they say if the flower withers she wears she's a flirt. All are. Dare-
say she felt I. When you feel like that you often meet what you
feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow
courting: collars and cuffs. Same time might prefer a tie undone
or something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does
it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw
something in me. Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than
some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his
dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my
appearance my age. Didn't let her see me in profile. Still, j^ou never
know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and the beast.
Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took ofiE her hat to show her hair.
Wide brim bought to hide her face, meeting someone might know
her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong
in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the
rocks in Holies street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money.
Why not? All a prejudice. She's worth ten, fifteen, more a pound.
What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand. Mrs Marion.
Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent to
Flynn. And the day I went to Drimmie's without a necktie.
Wrangle with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Ritchie
Goulding. He's another. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch
stopped at half past four. Was that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah.

Mr. Bloom with careful hand recomposed his shirt. O Lord, that
little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. After effect
not pleasant. They don't care. Complimented perhaps. Go home
and say night prayers with the kiddies. Well, aren't they? Still I
feel. The strength it gives a man. That's the secret of it. Good
job I let off there behind coming out of Dignam's. Cider that was.
Otherwise I couldn't have. Makes you want to sing after. Lacaiis

TheLittleReview 47

esant tatatara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan
however if you don't know how to end the conversation. Ask them
a question they ask you another. Good idea if you're stuck. Gain
time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say:
Good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. Girl in
Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. Parrots.
Wish she hadn't called me sir, O, her mouth in the dark! And you
a married man with a single girl. That's what they enjoy. Taking
a man from another woman. French letter still in my pocketbook.
But might happen sometime. I don't think. Come in. All is pre-
pared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they change
the venue when it's not what they like. Ask you do you like mush-
rooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Yet if I went the
whole hog, say : I want to, something like that. Because I did. She
too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want something
awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have
been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must
since she came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does
the trick. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by their
eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their
dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the
Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her
breasts were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner
that was when we drove home the featherbed mountain. Gnashing
her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon.
Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fire-
works. Up like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins
they must be, waiting for something to happen. Want to be grown-
ups. Dressing in mother's clothes. Time enough, understand all
the ways of the world. And the dark one with the mop head and
the nigger mouth. 1 knew she could whistle. Mouth made for that.
Why that highclass whore in Jammet's wore her veil only to her nose.
Would you mind, please, telling me the right time? Fll tell you the
right time up a lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morn-
ing, cure for fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see

48 T he Lit tl e Review

most of the game. Of course they understand birds, animals, babies.
In their line.

Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't
give that satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside
girls. Fine eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that
out not so much the pupil. Did she know what I ? Course. Like a
cat sitting beyond a dog's jump. Woman. Never meet one like that
Wilkins in the high school drawing a picture of Venus with all his
belongings on show. Call that innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has
her work cut out for her. Sharp as needles they are. When I said
to Molly the man at the corner of CufEe street was goodlooking,
thought she might like, twigged at once he had a false arm. Had too.
Where they get that? Handed down from father to mother to daugh-
ter, I mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her hand-
kerchief on the mirror to save the ironing. And when I sent her for
Molly's Paisley shawl to Presscott's by the way that ad I must,
carrying home the change in her stocking. Clever little minx! I never
told her. Neat way she carries parcels too. Attract men, small thing
like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back
when it was red. Who did you learn that from ? Nobody. Something
the nurse taught me. O, don't they know? Three years old she was
in front of Molly's dressing-table just before we left Lombard street
west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the
world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway not like the
other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell
of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point. Not
like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in
Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles.
Zrads and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy ran out to see
and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of
the rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She
smelt an onion. Darling, I saw your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's.
For this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all

The Little Review 40

things combined. Excitement. When she leaned back felt an ache at
the butt of my tongue. Your head it simplj' swirls. He's right. Might
have made a worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about
nothing. Then I will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language
between us. It couldn't be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be
false name however like my and the address Dolphin's barn a blind.

Her maiden- name ivas Je/nima Broivn

And she lived zvith her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same
brush. Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to
her as if it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never
could throw anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn.
Sad however because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to
potwalloping and fullers' earth for the baby when he does ah ah.
No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them out of harm's way. Nature.
Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam. Children's hands always
round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even closed at first, sour
milk in their swaddles and tainted curds. Oughtn't to have given
that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind. Mrs. Beaufoy,
Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan there
still. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriage-
able. Worst of all the night Mrs Diggan told me in the city arms.
Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have
that in your nose all night, whiff of stale boose. Bad policy however
to fault the husband. Chickens come home to roose. They stick by
one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault also. That's where
Molly can knock spots off them. It is the blood of the south. Moorish.
Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just com-
pare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in
the cupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out
some kind of a nondescript, wouldn't know what to call her. Always
see a fellow's weak point in his wife. Still there's destiny in it, falling
in love. Have their own secrets between them. Chaps that would
go to the dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then little
chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As
God made them He matched them. Sometime? children turn out well

50 The Little Review

enough. Twice nought makes one. This wet is very unpleasant.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long
and the short of it. Very strange about my watch. Wonder is there
any magnetic influence between the person because that was about the
time he. Yes, I suppose at once. Cat's away the mice will play. I
remember looking in Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Bac'c
of everything magnetism. Earth for instance pulling this and bein"^
pulled. That causes movement. And time? Well that's the time
the movement takes. Then if one thing stopped the whole ghesabo
would stop bit by bit. Because it's all arranged. Magnetic needle
tells you what's going on in the sun, the stars. Little piece of steel
iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman
and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up and look and
suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if you're a man to
see that and legs, look look and. Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before
third person. Molly, her underjaw stuck out, head back about the
farmer in the ridingboots with the spurs. And when the painters
were in Lombard street west. Smell that I did, like flowers. It was
too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the paint. Make
their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her slipper
on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick the
beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general
all round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her
hand. I leave you this to think of me when I'm far away on the
pillow. What is it? Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I
think. She'd like scent of that kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour.
Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her with a little jessamine mixed.
Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night she met him,
dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her black
and it had the perfume of the time before. Good conductor, is it?
Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For instance
if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too. Why
did I smell it only now? Took its time in corning like herself, slow

The Little Review 51

but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains blown
across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morn-
ing, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine fine
veil or web they have all over the skin fine like what do you call it
gossamer and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as anything,
rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes
off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoes. Stays. Drawers: little kick
taking them oft'. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her
shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Re-
minds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really.
There or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of
all holes and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or some-
thing. Muskrat. Bag under their tails. Dogs at each other behind.
Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well,
thank you. Animals go by that. Yes, now, look at it that way. We're
the same. Some women for instance warn you off when they have
their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat
on. Like what ? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof ! Please keep
off the grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary
gloves Long John had on his desk the other. Breath? What you eat
and drink gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected
with that because priests that are supposed to be are different. Women
buzz round it like flies round treacle. O father, will you? Let me
be the first to. That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates.
Source of life. And it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce.
Let me.

Mr. Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of
his waistcoat. Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. And no, that's the
soap. ,| !|^

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind.
Never went back and the soap not paid. Two and nine. Bad opinion
of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do I owe you ? Three
and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving credit
another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run

52 TheLittleReview

up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into
somewhere else.

Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just
went as far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks
mangled out: had a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after
meals. After supper walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance
somewhere, government sit. Walk after him now makes him awk-
ward like those newsboys me today. That's the way to find out. Ask
yourself who is he now. The Man on the Beach, prize tidbit story by
MrLeopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column.
And that fellow today at the graveside in the brown mackintosh.
Corns on his kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the.
Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the
Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old Betty's joints
are on the rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about ships around
they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader.
And distant hills seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. People
afraid of the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lighting up time. Jewels
diamonds flash better. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to
hurt you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run
you through the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are
you bob against. Scowl or smile. Not at all. Best time to spray plants
too in the shade after the sun. Were those nightclouds there all the
time? Land of the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the
northeast. My native land, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on
white fluxions. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold,
sore on the mouth. Friction of the position. Like to be that rock she
sat on. Also the library today: those girls graduates. Happy chairs
under them. But it's the evening influence. They all feel that. Open
like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes in
ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat
Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder. June that was too I
wooed. The year returns. And now? Sad about her lame of course
but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity. They take ad-,
vantage.

TheLittleReview 53

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums and I the
leavings. All that old hill has seen. Names change: that's all. Lovers:
yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Drained all the manhood out of me, little wretch.
She kissed me. My youth. Never again. Only once it comes. Or
hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the same.
Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing
new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's barn. Are you not happy
in your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke
Doyle's house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty,
Floey, Sara. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we.
And the old major partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only
child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you're escaping and run into
yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when
he and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played.
Rip: tear in Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van: bread van delivering.
Winkle: cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle cominj
back. She leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty
years asleep. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun
rusty from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thin'is
I'm a tree, so blind. Metempsychosis. They believed you could b:
c'.ianj?.ed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There ho
goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there.
Very likely. Hanging by the heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell
scared him out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Yes, there's the
light in the priest's house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the
mistake in the valuation when I was in Thorn's. Twentyeight it is.
Two houses they have. Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate. Ba.
again. Wonder why they come out at night like mice. They're a
mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice. What frightens them,
light or noise? Better sit still. All instinct like the bird in drouth
got water out of the end of a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a
little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost
see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white. Colours depend on the

54 The Little Revie IV

light you see. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase. Colour
of brown turf. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That's
how that wise man what's his name with the burning glass. Then
the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' matches. What? Per-
haps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and light.

Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That
bee last week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling.
Birds too never find out what they say. Like our small talk. And
says she and says he. Nerve they have to fly over the ocean and back.
Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors
have too. Big brutes of steamers floundering along in the dark,
iowjng out like seacows. Faugh a ballagh. Out of that, bloody curse
to you. Others in vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about
like snuff at a wake when the stormy winds do blow. Married too.
Sometimes away for years at the ends of the earth somewhere. No
ends really because it's round. Wife in every port they say. She has
a good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching home again. If
ever he does. Smelling the tailend of ports. How can they like the
sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed. Off he sails with a scapular
or a medal on him for luck. Well? And the tephilim poor papa's
father had on his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of
Egypt and into the house of bondage. Something in all those super-
stitions because when you go out never know what dangers. Hanging
on to a plank for grim life, lifebelt round round him, gulping salt
water, and that's the last of his nibs till the sharps catch hold of him.
Do fish ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea,
placid, crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker. Moon
looking down. Not my fault, old cockalorum.

A lost long candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in aid
of funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster
of violet but one white star. They floated, fell: they faded. And
among the elms a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By
the screen of lighted windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went
crying, wailing: Evening Telegraph, extra edition. Result of the
Gold Cup races : and from the door of Dignam's house a boy ran out

T h e Lit 1 1 e Re V i e w 55

and called. Twittering the bat flew here, flew there. Far out over
the sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth settled for slumber
tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was old) and felt
gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his many ferns. He lay but opened
a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but
awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled,
winked at Mr. Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irisli
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Day we went out in the Erin's
King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy
trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard to
feed the herrings. And the women, fear of God in their faces. Milly,
no sign of her funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know
what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean. But being
lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't
want to. Mamma! Mamma! Frightening them with masks too.
Poor kids. Only troubles wild fire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I
got her for that. After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same
teeth she has. What do they love? Another themselves? But the
morning she chased her with the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt.
1 felt her pulse. Ticking. Little hand it was: now big. Dearest
Papli. All that the hand says when you touch. Loved to count m
w.iist coat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made mc laugh t )
see. Little paps to begin v\'ith. Left one is more sensitive, I thin'c.
Mine tco. Ne.irer tiie heart. Her growing pains at night, calling,
wakening me. b rightened she was when her nature came on her first.
Poor child! Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her
girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. O'Hara's tower.
The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all his family.
Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking out over tlie
sea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. I always
thought I'd marry a lord or a gentleman with a private yacht.
Butuns noches, senorita. El nombre ama la muchaha hormosa. Why
me? Because you were so foreign from the others.

Better not stick here all night like an oyster. This weather makes
you dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too

56 T h e L i 1 1 1 e R. e V i e to

late for Leah, Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the
hospital to see. Hope she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the
bath, funeral, house of keys. Museum with those goddesses, Dedalus'
song. Then that brawler in Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back
there. Drunken ranters. Ought to go home and laugh at themselves.
Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like a
child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it. Other way round.
Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for
Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked about, three
fangs in her mouth. Extremely nice cup of tea. Imagine that in the
early morning Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed
the cow. But Dignam's put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so de-
pressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must
call to the Scottish widow's as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for
granted we're going to pop off first. That widow on Monday
was it outside Cramer's that looked at me. Buried the poor husband
but progressing favorably. Well? What do you expect her to do?
Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn.
Poor man O'Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here.
The sewage. Hopeless. Some good motherly woman take him in tow,
platter face and a large apron. See him sometimes walking about
trying to find out who played the trick. U. p : up. Fate that is. He,
not me. Also a shop often noticed. Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt
last night? Wait. Something confused. She had red slippers on.
Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does. Would I like her in
pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near
Holyhead by now. Must hail that ad of Keyes's. Work Hynes and
Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in them.
What's that? Might be money.

Mr. Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand.
He brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read.
Better go. Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook.
Never know what you find. Bottle with story of a treasure in it
thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children always want to throw

things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters. What's this?
Bit of stick.

TheLittleReview 57

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she
come here tomorrow ? Will I ?

Mr. Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot.
Write a message for her. Might remain. What?

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Tide comes
here a pool near her foot. O, those transparent ! Besides they don't
know. What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty
boy because I do not like.

AM.A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr. Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing
sand. Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming
up here. Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days.
Done half by design. •

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck.
Now if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't.
Chance. We'll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear.
Made me feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. And she can do the other. Did too.
And Belfast. I won't go. Let him. Just close my eyes a moment.
Won't sleep though. Bat again. No harm in him. Just a few.

O sweety all your little white I made me do we two naughty dar-
ling she him half past the bed him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de
perfume your wife black hair heave under embon senoritayoung eyes
Mulvey plump bubs me bread van Winkle red slippers she rusty
sleep wander years dreams return tail end Agendath lovey showed me
her next year in drawers return next in her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed.
Mr. Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned,
breathed. Just for a few.

Cuckoo.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priests' house cooed where
Canon O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes
S. J. were taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton

58 T he Lit 1 1 e Review

chops with catsup and talking about.

Cuckoo. ^

Cuckoo.

Cuckoo. ''

Because it was a bird that came out of its little house to tell the
time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there because
sh£ was as quick as anything about a thing, was Gerty MacDowell,
and she noticed at once that th« foreign gentleman that was
sitting on the rocks looking was.

Cucko'o.

Cuckoo.

{to be continued)

^ New Testament

by Sherivood Anderson

XI.

THE nights in the valley of the Mississippi River have the
eyes of an owl. I have risen from the place where I
slept under a tree but cannot shake the sleep out of my
eyes. The nights in the valley of the Mississippi River
are staring nights. They look at men with the pupils
extended. The skies are empty over the cities and the plains. The
skies have not formulated a thought that I can breathe into my being.
In the whole valley of the Mississippi River there is no bed of thought
in which I can lie.

There are farm women living in houses that stand beside dusty
roads in Illinois and Iowa. In Indiana and Ohio there are many
towns. In Michigan — far up where the valley is no more and where
the cold finger of the north touches the earth in September — there
are men living who wear heavy boots and fur caps and who walk all
day under naked trees.

Everywhere are men and women who arouse wonder in me. I

The Little Review 59

have awakened the feeling of wonder in myself. I have awakened
from sleeping under a tree.

My walking far out, at the edge of life, is an adventure upon which
I resolved only after I had kissed with my warm lips the cold fingers
of death. I am walking in greater and greater circles. Sometimes I
am afraid. I run crazily in wider and wider circles when I am afraid.

XII.

There was a woman sitting at a desk in an ofKce in Chicago whom
I went to visit. I told her my feet were cold because I had spent my
life walking in the bed of a river. I leaned over the desk and peered
into her eyes. As I remember her she was a small woman with yellow
hair. As I leaned forward something happened. My lips touched
her lips. My cheeks touched her cheeks. Her eyes opened and closed
like the eyes of a cat in a darkened room. Her eyes were like little
pools into which I threw myself. Like a beaver of the north I had
built myself a home in the pools.

"My lips have made many strange words. I have been walking
since birth in the bed of a river," I said to the woman.

I must return to the seeking of truth. The woman and I had for
a long time walked hand in hand. One evening I remember we got
into a wagon at the edge of a town and rode slowly along through the
dust of a roadway under a moon. It was in a land where elderberry
bushes grew by the fences. We stopped by a gate and went into a
pasture. Cattle stood nearby under a tree. The air was filled with a
warm milky smell.

That must have been in September, in the month when the fingers
of the north play over the fields.

We went into the field and sat on wet grass. I remember that I
spoke of John the Baptist. I told her how John sat on a hill all alone
for a night and a day before he went away into a forest.

It was quiet in the field when I went there with the woman. "We
are brothers and sisters," I said, "let us make love."

My arms grew very hot and the white arms of the woman grew
hot. Her hand, caressing the grass, touched the back of an insect.

60 TheLittleReview

The insect sang madly.

The insect went into an ecstasy.

The woman and I came out of the field and departed into a city,
riding in a wagon that had no springs. I remember that we rode
under a moon.

I remember that we rode slowly along under a moon beside corn-
fields.

We came into the streets of a city.

We came into sleeping streets.

The people in the houses in the city were asleep.

We rode in a slow-going wagon in dark streets under the staring
windows of houses.

Later I went to the woman dressed as you see me now. I went
into a building and up a stairway into a room. I leaned over the
woman's desk as she sat writing words on a sheet of paper. I said
the words I have put down here in regard to the matter of wading in
rivers.

It is my own belief the whole plan was matured in advance.
It is my own belief I took hold of insanity as, in a crowded city
street, one takes hold of the hand of a child.

The incident, however, may have had more significance than that.

Insanity is a slow moving liquid poured into a cup.

As you look into the cup your eyes change their colour.

The liquid is green.

It is an ultimate blue.

The liquid is colorless.

It moves out of the West into the East.

My notion, I fancy, was to ask the woman a question. I wanted
to ask if she would drink with me out of the cup. I had no desire to
take the woman away. I did not want to lift the woman out of her
life.

I am uncertain of my desires. You have already sensed that.
Women in farm houses by dusty roads I have traveled, the men of

T h e Li t tl e Re V i e w 6t

the north who walk in winter in heavy cloth boots under naked trees,
all the men and women with whom I have walked and among whom
I have gone talking of life have been confusing to me.

I have conceived of life as a bowl into which I am cast. If the
outer world is inhabited by gods, as I choose to believe it is, it is
because I am minute and you are minute.

I cannot keep my footing on the side of the bowl of life. There is
however no humbleness in me. I constantly strive to reach out. It
is that makes me seem strange in your sight. If you have heard my
voice, laughing at the bottom of the bowl, it is because I have an
ambition to be a flea in God's ear. I have wished to set up a roaring
in God's head. I have wished to roar of men, women and children I
have seen walking in the valley of a river. I have wished to remind
God of my love of my fellows.

That last statement I fear is a lie. I am not concerned with the
fate of my fellows. If you think I am you are mistaken about me. I
am not one who breeds in the beds at night. I am one who walks
up and down. Breeding does not concern me. I have no motive in
climbing on the side of the bowl.

I wonder if my motive in whispering strange words to a woman can
be explained. I am sure you will see what I am driving at. I am
wondering if my motive in asking her to drink with me out of the
cup of insanity had back of it a wholesome desire.

I have an impulse to be wholesome.

Did I want to lift her over the side of the bowl.

Did I want to put my feet on her slender shoulders and leap into
the arms of a God.

Did I desire only to get into a quiet darkness.

Did I wish to create a thought.

Am I after all one of the brfeeders, one of those who lie in the beds.

Am I crawling on the side of the bowl with some definite desire
iisleep in my being.

{to be continued)

The Reader Critic

by F. E. Swan see, JVales:

I wonder if you are interested in impressions of you as a whole.
Stimulating, undoubtedly. Pleasant frequently. A tonic, a damn good
tonic, not so easy to take with laughter, but efficacious. And you are
always an urge. Life is surely all heyday for you.

Vincenc Noga, Chicago:

You have earnestly stated that "every one can save himself nausea
and suffering by avoiding the artist." Quite so; but how about his unholy
product? I buy a newspaper to see how many new strikes have hatched
out over night and, before I have a chance to read a word, a funny cartoon,
worth $100 or more, is glaring at me. I reside seven miles from the stock-
yards ( I am a hog scraper). You see, I-cannot avoid riding upon street
cars, and the interiors of all of them are decorated with things made by
artists. Judging me by my occupation, you may rightly guess that my
aesthetic faculties cannot be developed to any radical extent. At my occupa-
tion I am surrounded with repulsive sights; however, they never inflict upon
my stomach so much discomfort as the products of "Art" in the street car.
One can hardly pass a garbage can without noticing at least a magazine
cover lurking from it. ... '«•

Hoping that my sincerity shall not provoke your gentle temper, I am
for curtailing the quantity, and improving the quality of art.

THE STRADIVAMUS OF PIANOS

313 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY

CHR.I/TiNEV

ARTISTS FROM OUT-OF-TOWN:

DON'T BE LONESOME— DINE AT

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VISITORS SEEKING A GLIMPSE

OF ARTISTS, LIFE: DON'T MISS

CHRISTINES

LUNCHEON
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THE DRAMA SINCE OCTOBER HAS PRINTED: ••■'™

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Special articles by leading actors and other artists
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Denis, George Arliss, Granville Barker, Daniel
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Complete notes on all new books related to the drama

Six articles on how to give drama in the schools,
I with concrete advice and play lists;

Seven study courses for clubs and lists of plays
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FORD MADOX HUEFFER, JAMES JOYCE, EDNA KENTON,
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AND REPRODUCTIONS OF THK WORK OF;

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MARGOT ASQUITH: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

' IMargot's book is out and the critics rage over it from pole
to pole. It deals intimately with every prominent person-
ality of the last generation " — New York Herald.

UMBO Aldous Huxley

"This young man can write Every page twinkle3 and
sparkles with the most cheerful pessimism "

— National News.
LEDA, AND OTHER POEMS Aldous Huxley

Mgorous, sp'eiididly youthful poetry touched with that
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"QUEEN LUCIA"

E. F. Benson

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LADY LILLITH Stephen McKenna

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MEN AND BOOKS AND CITIES Robert Cortes Holliday

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OUR WOMEN: Chapters on the Sex-Discord Arnold Bennet

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relations of men and women." — New York Post.

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'^- Yi

GTTLE REYIEW

VCL- VII.

SEPTEMBER^DECEMBER

No. 3

CONTENTS

Else von Freytag-Loringhoven (photograph by Man Ray)

Art and the Law

An Obvious Statement

Drawing

The Bomb Thrower

Bibi-la-Bibiste

Mask (for "King Hunger")

The Robin's House

Photograph of Mina Loy

Lion's Jaws

Southern Women

Poems

Discussion :

The "Others" Anthology

John Rodker's Frog

Margaret Anderson

Charles DeMuth

Ben Hecht

Soeurs X . . .

Herman Rosse

Djuna Barnes

Mina Loy

Stephen Hudson

Else von Freytag-Loringhoven

John Rodker
Mina Lov

Carlos Williams's "Kora in Hell" Else von Freytag-Loringhoven
A Note on H. W. Mimms Hart Crane

(Photographs by Hervey Mimms)

Other Books

Essentials

The Russian Dadaists

E. Robert Schmitz

The Art of Marguerite D'Alvarez
Study
Study

Garden Abstract
Bergamasque
Ulysses (Episode XIV)
The Reader Critic,

John Rodker

Robert McAlmon

L. Lozoivick

Margaret Anderson

JVyndharn Lewis

Arthur Winthrop

Hart Crane

Carlo Linati

James Joyce

THE
BTTLE REVIEW

Art and the haw

by jb

HE heavy farce and sad futility of trying a creative work
in a court of law appalls me. Was there ever a judge
qualified to judge even the siropkst psychic outburst?
How then a work of Art? Has any man not a nincom-
poop ever been heard by a jury of his peers?

In a physical world laws have been made to preserve physical
order. Laws cannot reach, nor have power over, any other realm.
Art is and always has been the supreme Order. Because of this
it is the only activity of man that has an eternal quality. Works
of Art are the only permanent sign that man has existed. What legal
genius to bring Law against Order!

The society for which Mr. Sumner is agent, I am told, was
founded to protect the public from corruption. When asked what
public'? its defenders spring to the rock on which America was
founded : the cream-puff of sentimentality, and answer chivalrously
"Our young girls." So the mind of the young gicl rules this country?
In it rests the safety, progress and lustre of a nation. One might
have guessed it. . . . but — why is she given such representa-
tives? I recall a photograph of the United States Senators, a galaxy

The Little Review

of noble manhood that could only have been assembled from far-flun-j
country stores where it had spat and gossiped and stolen prunes.

The present case is rather ironical. We are being prosecuted
for printing the thoughts in a young girl's mind. Her thoughts and
actions and the meditations which they produced in the mind of the
sensitive Mr. Bloom. If the young girl corrupts, can she also be
corrupted? Mr. Joyce's young girl is an innocent, simple, childish
girl who tends children . . . she hasn't had the advantage of
the dances, cabarets, motor trips open to the young girls of this more
pure and free country.

If there is anything I really fear it is the mind of the young girl.

I do not understand Obscenity ; I have never studied it nor had
it, but I know that it must be a terrible and peculiar menace to the
United States. I know that there is an expensive department main-
tained in Washington with a v;hief and fifty assistants to prevent its
spread — and in and for New York we have the Sumner vigilanti.

To a mind somewhat used to life Mr. Joyce's chapter seems to
be a record of the simplest, most unpreventable, most unfocused sex
thoughts possible in a rightly-constructed, unashamed human being.
Mr. Joyce is not teaching early Egyptian perversions nor inventing
new ones. Girls lean back everywhere, showing lace and silk stock-
ings; wear low cut sleeveless gowns, breathless bathing suits; men
think thoughts and have emotions about these things everywhere —
seldom as delicately and imaginatively as Mr. Bloom — and no one is
corrupted. Can merely reading about the thoughts he thinks corrupt
a man when his thoughts do not? All power to the artist, but this
is not his function.

It was the poet, the artist, who discovered love, created the lover,
made sex everything that it is beyond a function. It is the Mr. Sumners
who have made it an obscenity. It is a little too obvious to discus?
the inevitable result of damming up a force as unholy and terrific as
the reproductive force with nothing more powerful than silence, black
looks, and censure.

The Little R e v i e

"Our young girls" grow up conscious of being possessed, as by
n devil, with some urge which they are told is shameful, dangerous
and obscene. They try to be "jiure" with no other incantations than
a few "obstetric mutterings."

Mr. Sumner seems a decent enough chap . . , seriou-? and
colourless and worn as if he had spent his life resenting the caiodons.
A 100 per cent. American who believes that denial, resentment ivd
silence about all things pertaining to sex produce uprightness.

Only in a nation ignorant of the power of Art . . . insensi-
tive and unambitious to the need and appreciation of Art .
could such habit of mind obtain. Art is the only thing that produces
life, extends life — I am speaking beyond physically or mentally. A
people without the experience of the Art influence can bring forth
nothing but a humanity that bears the stamp of a loveless race. Fac-
simile women and stereotyped men — a humanity without distinction
or design, indicating no more the creative touch than if they were as-
sembled parts.

A beautiful Russian woman said to me recently, "How dangc-rwus
and horrible to fall in love with an American man ! One could never
tell which one it was — they are all the same."

There are still those people who are not outraged by the mrn-
tion of natural facts who will ask "what is the necessity to discuss
them?" But. that is not a question to ask about a work of Art.
The only question relevant at all to "Ulysses" is — Is it a work of Art?
The men best capable of judging have pronounced it a work of the
first rank. Anyone with a brain would hesitate to question the ne-
cessity in an artist to create, or his ability to choose the right subject
matter. Anyone who has read "Exiles," "The Portrait," and
"Ulysses" from the beginning, could not rush in with talk of obscen-
ity. No man has been more crucified on his sensibilities than James
Joyce.

An Obvious Statement

(for the millionth time)
by Margaret Anderson

R. SUMNER is a representative intelligence (I will
say later what value I put upon the "representa-
tive"), — a serious, sincere man, very much interested
in proving his conviction that James Joyce is filthy to
read and contaminating to those who read him.

My first point is that Mr. Sumner is operating in realms in
which it can be proved that he cannot function intelligently, legiti-
mately, or with any relation to the question which should be up for
discussion in the court.

That question is the relation of the artist — the great writer —
to the public.

First, the artist has no responsibility to the
public whatever; but the public should be con-
scious of its responsibility to him, being mysteri-
ously and eternally in his debt.

Second, the position of the great artist is
impregnable. You can no more destroy him than
you can create him. You can no more limit his
expression, patronizingly suggest that his genius
present itself in channels personally pleasing to
you, than you can eat the stars.

I should begin my (quite unnecessary!) defense of James Joyce
with this statement: I know practically everything that will be

The Little Review

said in court, both by the prosecution and the defense. I disagree
Avith practically everything that will be said by both.

/ do not admit that the issue is debatable.

I state clearly that the {quite unnecessary !) defense of beauty
is the only issue involved.

James Joyce has never writen anything, and will never be able
to write anything, that is not beautiful. So that we come to the ques-
tion of beauty in the Art sense, — that is, to the science of aesthetics,
the touchstone which establishes whether any given piece of writing,
painting, music, sculpture, is a work of Art or merely an effort in
that direction by a man who, however he may wish or work, has
not been born an artist.

You will say this brings us to an impasse ; that we now arrive
at that point where two autocracies of opinion can be established —
one which says "This is Art" and the other which says "It is not."
And you will tell me that one is quite as likely to be right as the
other, — and that therefore every man is thrown back upon his per-
sonal taste as a criterion, etc.

I answer: Autocracy"? It is entirely a matter of autocracy of
opinion. And the autocracy that matters, that can prove itself, as
against that which cannot, is the only thing we are concerned with
in this discussion. It is the only thing to be considered in any Art
discussion, but the last that ever w considered. Why is this? Because
it never occurs to the Mr. Sumners of the world that Art is a highly
specialized activity to which they must bring something beyond mere
knowledge. They are content to approach even without knowledge.
If Mr. Sumner were asked to judge pearls, for instance, he wouldn't
dream of expressing an opinion unless he really knew how a good
pearl must feel to the touch, how it must weigh, what color it must be.
If he were asked to buy a string of corals for a connoisseur he
wouldn't undertake the commission unless he knew that Japanese
corals are more "beautiful" than Italian corals, and that he couldn't
buy an acceptable string for less than $3,000. In short, unless he
were a connoisseur he wouldn't be doing these things.

In Art (and this is the crux of the whole business) one must

10 T h e L it 1 1 e R e V i e w

judge with a touchstone beyond even the capacity of the connoisseur.
It is not the taste, the judgment of connoisseurs that has established
what are the great works of Art in the world. It is the perception
of the great artists themselves^ — the judgment of the masters.

In begininng to talk of this kind of perception, of who are the
masters, it is necessary to begin with the fundamentals of aesthetics.
In aesthetics it can be established;

First, that to a work of Art you must bring
aesthetic judgment, not moral, personal, nor even
technical judgment. It is not the human feelings
that produce this kind of judgment. It is a capa-
city for art emotion, as distinguished fro?n human
eniotion, that produces it.

Second, that only certain kinds of people are
capable of art emotion {aesthetic emotion). They
are the artist himself and the critic whose capacity
for appreciation proves itself by an equal capacity
to create.

In an old race of people, like the Hindoos, where the artist is
protected from the assault of the philistine by as definite a caste
system as exists in all other phases of Hindu life, the kind of
thing that will happen to us in a United States court could not take
place. That civilization is founded on the autocratic recognition of
certain values, — the artist as the highest manifestation of life; the
critic who recognizes him ; the philosopher who explains him. An
autocracy — the recognition of the valuable as against the less valu-
able, — is the only sound basis for life. Anything else is shameful.
Anything else means that the exceptional people must suffer with
the average people, — from the average people. This is the ethics
of the western world. Nearly everyone believes this to be inevitable,
— even desirable. Mr. Sumner believes it. He has quoted to me a
remark of Victor Hugo's to the effect that personal freedom extends

The Little Review 11

just to that point where it does not interfere with the personal free-
dom of another. I have said to him "Mr. Sumner, that is an inepeti-
tude. There is no thinking in that kind of remark." I don't know
just where Victor Hugo makes this banal and curiously unthoughtful
statement. Perhaps he makes it only in connection with physical
freedom, — in which case it is not entirely senseless. But when a
good mind begins to reflect on the subject of the more subtle freedoms,
what does it say? First of all, that there is no such thing as freedom.
There is only interdependence. And of the little freedoms that can
he attained or respected, in this great maize of the interdependence
of all life, let us respect those of the superior people rather than of
the inferior people. It is far more i7nporta7it that a great artist's
freedom to write as he pleases he respected than that Air. Sumner's
freedom to suppress what he does not know to he a ivork of Art he
respectd.

Why is there no such autocracy in this country? — why is there
no caste feeling which makes a man humble before what he does not
understand — before what he does not know that he does not know —
rather than confident that he has some special capacity to deal with it ?
It is because in America every human being, no matter what his
training, his business, his qualifications, makes some mysterious identi-
fication of himself with the artist. He says "I love the better things
of life, I go to concerts and art galleries, I couldn't live without
these things" — and that is supposed to endow him with some crea-
tive participation. I can't tell you how many people have said to me :
"I don't know anything about Art, I couldn't write a poem or com-
pose a piece of music to save my life, but I know what I like, I have
a very good critical sense, and I feel the way the artist does." They
mean that they eat Art, live on it, — go to hear good music in order to
drown in the emotions it gives them. In America, where the emo-
tional life has been allowed so few direct outlets, this is what hap-
pens everywhere. But if this is the way the majority of humanity
acts, it is not the way the artist acts. And the thing that will puzzle
me to the end of time is this: You can tell a man who knows a great
deal about insurance, for instance, that he doesn't know enough
mechanical engineering to build a bridge, and he doesn't feel insulted.

12 The Little kevieiv

But if you tell a plumber, or an engineer, a business man, a lawyer,
a scholar, a club woman, a debutante, that they are not artists, not
creators in this special sense, they take it as the deepest insult. Of
course, I suppose this shouldn't exasperate me. I should take it all
as the deepest tribute a man can pay to that mysterious phenomenon,
the artist, with whom he thus identifies his own highest instincts.
Well, I wouldn't be exasperated ; I could look upon it all as a rather
charming foolishness, if it weren't for the prosecution of that human
being whom all mankind in its best moments is trying to impersonate.
This at least begins the argument. Next month I shall report
all the blatant ineptitudes of the court proceedings and answer them
simply, obviously, and patiently, — unless I shall have succumbed in
the meantime to the general sense of devastating futility which is
really the only good sense one can hope to preserve in these con-
tentions.

To close, I shall quote some passages on the theory that "Beauty
is a state," from Ananda Coomaraswamy's "Dance of Siva" (pub-
lished by the Sunwise Turn, New York). The italics are my own.

"It is very generally held that natural objects such as
human beings, animals or landscapes, and artificial objects
such as factories, textiles or works of intentional art, can be
classified as beautiful or ugly. And yet no general principle
of classification has ever been found : and that which seems
to be beautiful to one is described as ugly to another. . . .
Take, for example, the human type : every race, and to some
extent, every individual, has an unique ideal. Nor can we
hope for a final agreement. We cannot expect the European
to prefer the Mongolian features, nor the Mongolian the
European. Of course, it is very easy for each to maintain
the absolute value of his own taste and to speak of other
types as ugly. ... In like manner the various sects main-
tain the absolute value of their own ethics. But it is clear
that such claims are nothing more than statements of preju-

T h e Lit tl e Re V iew 13

dice, for who is to decide which racial ideal or which mor-
ality is 'best' ? It is a little too easy to decide that our own
is best; zue are at the most entitled to believe it the best for
us.

"It is the same with works of art. Different artists are
inspired by different objects ; what is attractive and stimulat-
ing to one is depressing and unattractive to another, and the
choice also varies from race to race and epoch to epoch. As
to the appreciation of such works, it is the same ; for men in
general admire only such works *as by education or tempera-
ment they are predisposed to admire. To enter into the spirt
of an unfamiliar art demands a greater effort than most are
wiling to make. . . . There are many who never yet
felt the beauty of Egyptian sculpture or Chinese or Indian
painting or music. That they have the hardihood to deny
their beauty, however, proves nothing.

"And yet there remain philosophers firmly convinced
that an absolute Beauty {rasa) exists. . . . It is also
widely held that the true critic {rasika) is able to decide
which works of art are beautiful (rasavant) and which are
not. ... It remains then, to resolve the seeming contra-
dictions. This is only to be accomplished by the use of more
exact terminology. So far I have spoken of 'beauty' without
defining my meaning, and have used one word to express a
multiplicity of ideas. But we do not mean the same thing
when we speak of a beautiful g;'"l and a beautiful poem ; it
will be still more obvious that we mean two different things
if we speak of beautiful weather and a beautiful picture.
In point of fact, the conception of beauty and the adjective
'beautiful' belong exclusively to aesthetic and should only be
used in aesthetic judgment. We seldom make any such
judgments when we speak of natural objects as beautiful;
we generally mean that such objects as we call beautiful are

14 The Little Review

congenial to us, practically or ethically. Too often we pre-
tend to judge a work of art in the same way, calling it beau-
tiful if it represents some form or activity of which we hear-
tily approve, or if it attracts us by the tenderness or gaiety
of its colour, the sweetness of its sounds or the charm of its
movement. But when we thus pass judgment on the dance
in accordance with our sympathetic attitude toward the
dancer's charm or skill, or the meaning of the dance, we
ought not to use the language of pure aesthetic. Only when
we judge a work of art aesthetically may we speak of the
presence or absence of beauty, we may call the work
rasavant or otherwise; but when we judge it from the stand-
point of activity, practical or ethical, we ought to use a cor-
responding terminology, calling the picture, song or actor
'lovely,' that is to say lovable, or otherwise, the action
'noble,' the colour 'brilliant,' the gesture 'graceful,' or other-
wise, and so forth. And it will be seen that in doing this w^e
are not really judging the work of art as such, but only the
material and the separate parts of which it is made, the activ-
ities they represent, or the feelings they represent. . . .

"We should only speak of a work of art as good or bad
with reference to its aesthetic quality ; only the subject and
the material of the work are entangled in relativity. In
other words, to say that a work of art is more or less beau-
tiful or rasavant, is to define the extent to which it is a work
of art, rather than a mere illustration. However important
the element of sj^mpathetic magic in such a work may be,
however important its practical applications, it is not in these
that its beauty consists.

"What then, is Beauty, what is rasa . . . what is
this sole quality which the most dissimilar works of art
possess in common. Let us recall the history of a work of
art. There is ( 1 ) an aesthetic intuition on the part of the
original artist, — the poet or creator; then (2) the internal
expression of this intiution, — ^the true creation or vision of

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 15

beauty, (3) the indication of this by external signs
(language) for the purpose of communication, — the techni-
cal activity; and finally (4) the resulting stimulation of the
critic or rasika to reproduction of the original intuition, or
to some aproximation to it.

"The source of the original intuition may, as we have
seen, be any aspect of life whatever. To one creator the
scales of a fish suggest a rhythmical design, another is moved
by certain landscapes, a third elects to speak of hovels, a
fourth to sing of palaces, a fifth may express the idea that all
things are enlinked, enlaced and enamoured in terms of
the General Dance, or he may express the same idea equally
vividly by saying that 'not a sparrow falls to the ground
without our Father's knowledge.' Every artist discovers
beauty and every critic finds it again when he tastes of the
same experience through the medium of the external signs.
But where is this beauty? We have seen that it cannot be
said to exist in certain things and not in others. It may then
be claimed that beauty exists everywhere, and this I do not
deny, though I prefer the clearer statement that it may be
discovered anywhere. If it could be said to exist everywhere
in a matrial and intrinsic sense, we could pursue it with our
cameras and scales, after the fashion of the experimental
psychologists ; but if we did so, we should only achieve a
certain acquaintance with average taste — we should not dis-
cover a means of distinguishing forms that are beautiful
from forms that are ugly. Beauty can never thus be meas-
ured, for it does not exist apart from the artist himself, and
the rasika who enters into his experience.

"The true critic (rasika) perceives the beauty of which
the artist has exhibited the signs. It is not necessary that
the critic should appreciate the artist's meaning — every
work of art is a kamadhenu yielding many meanings — for

16 T h e Lit tl e Review

he knows without reasoning whether or not the work is
beautiful, before the mind begins to question what it is
'about.' Hindu writers say that the capacity to feel beauty
{to taste rasa) cannot be acquired by study j but is the re-
ward of merit gained in a past life; for many good men and
would-be historians of art have never perceived it. The poet
is born, not made; but so also is the rasika, whose genius
differs in degree, not in kind, from that of the original
artist. . . .

"The critic, as soon as he becomes an exponent, has to
prove his case ; and he cannot do this by any process of
argument, but only by creating a new work of art, the criti-
cism. His audience, catching the gleam at second hand — but
still the same gleam, for there is only one — has then the
opportunity to approach the original work a second time,
more reverently."

DRAWING. BY CHARLES DE MUTH.

The Bomb Thrower

by Ben Hecht

MEN and women swathed in streets and buildings ; fac-
tories, avenues, houses and traffic winding them mummy
fashion. He stood pressed against the wall of a sky-
scraper. Hatless, imshaven, thin-lipped and with the
eyes of a frightened girl, he stood watching the people
in the streets.

Their movement on the sidewalk in front of him was like the
play of shadows. He might lose himself in these shadows. His legs
inside their sogg>- trousers quiverer pleasantly.

He raised his eyes toward the window-pitted altitudes. A patch
of sky lay neatly balanced between the roof lines of the street.
The curious smile of a man saying "yes" without knowing what it
means loosened his lips.

He must look at people. Men were moving about in the city
hunting him. They would come soon and take him away. In the
meantime he must fill his eyes with the sight of people, of stone
pavements, of doorways and plate glass windows lettered with gold
and porcelain. These things constituted freedom.

Curves of people, blur and drip of people ; why did they seem
different now? They were slaves and masters — murderous blood-
sucking rich and sweating back-broken poor. There was this tableau
in the crowd ; a strong lined terrible cartoon was in the crowd. But
his eyes or his mind would not clear. He stared in vain.

The people were like rain on the sidewalk. He watched them
vanish in gusts before him. He felt frightened at their vagueness.
Round and round them was the smoke of chimnies, the noise of
traffic and swirl of buildings. They were wound deep. Legs moved
under the swathing. Faces wrapped in tons of stone, in miles of
steel, drifted blindly. Life seemed lost within an effigy.

He removed a cigarette from his trouser pocket and lighted it,
stafing at the little pyramid of flame that danced at the end of his

The Little Review 19

nose. Eventually the men who were hunting him would come to
this corner. They would see him against the skyscraper — hatless,
unshaved, smoking a cigarette. He told himself these things, taking
pride in their lucidity. Then his lips loosened in the smile again.

No one was hunting the people on the sidewalk. And yet they
hurried running this way and that, darting under cars, in and out
of doorways. While he who was being hunted stood motionless.
Men were worming their w^ay through the layers of the city like
bewildered maggots wandering over a mummy case, hunting him.
When they found him they would become suddenly large. They
would take him by the wrists, twisting them sharply, and hold him
among them at the curbing while a crowd gathered and a wagon,
clanging vividly, came charging out of the traffic.

He came back to himself. He must deny himself the simplicity of
fear. If he stepped into the crowd he would begin to run. He
would run, knocking people over, jumping in and out among cars
and wagons. His legs quivered pleasantly at the thought and the
cigarette dried to his lips. It might be better than standing as he was,
with unfocused thoughts nauseating his brain. Yet he held himself
from running, his unwashed hands flattened against the cool stone
of the skyscraper and his fear like the soul of a stranger scurried
about in his body.

His thought became a dream that twisted itself before his eyes,
addressing him with sudden intimate voices. He felt the city like a
great dice box shaking about him. Men and women rolled and
rattled out of it into the streets. Standing against the skyscraper he
could observe the combinations — the changing hieroglyphs of dots.
Now the city shook out combinations of yellow, blue and lavender
hats ; luscious curves of women and doubled fists of men swinging
against the black angles of legs ; faces that seemed like a soiled unrav-
eling bandage and arrangements of wood and steel that were con-
tinually turning corners. And now it shook out the sound of laugh-
ter and the shriek of horns.

The intimate voices said to him there was no meaning to life.
He had once been mistaken or perhaps insane. Now he was a man
recovered from a delirium of mania and finding himself weak and
ealm in a svjnny pkee, The things that ha4 peopled his mania bi"

20 The Little Review

came a distant part of the dream before his eyes, an impossible and
persisting yesterday. He watched them. There was the high ham-
mering purpose of ideals that had been in his brain. There was the
clear lust that had animated him. He had been moving all his
life in the light of this lust. It had played like a searchlight before
him, a searchlight on a tableau. Masters and slaves — exploiting, in-
tolerable tyrants with red faces and definitely-shaped hearts; and
humanity crucified in factories and slums. These things had been
plain yesterday. Now they were far away and outside of him in a
dream.

As he filled his eyes with the sight of people the impossible and
persistent yesterday drifted continually before him as if it no longer
belonged to the world. The light of faith that had supported this
yesterday had drained itself out of him. He saw himself stealing
about through streets with a thing under his coat, entering a
crowded building and casually hiding the thing under a long stone
bench on which people were sitting. A few moments later amazing
things were happening. Windows fell into the street. Walls flew
through the air. The crowded building into which he had carried
the thing became a confusion of stone and bricks.

He watched the yesterday again and saw himself standing on a
corner with the noise of explosion still in his ears. It had remained
in his ears as he walked away. He sought now to recapture it. But a
silence remained. The explosion had been a noise heard by someone
else. The yesterday in which it had occurred had been a yesterday
inhabited by someone else.

From his position pressed against the wall of the skyscraper he,
the man who had carried the things under his coat, looked upon a
world in which he had never lived before. The tableau and the
patterns of yesterday were shuffled together and vanished. The
philosophy by which he had read into its heart was vanished. Thought
had become a fantastic shuffle of words, a flood of ink and a flood
of sound that broke against the movement of crowds and vanished.

The city stared down at him with its geometrical cloud of
windows. The streets wound themselves around him and the zigzag
tumble of his dice played about his feet. Men were prowling through
the city hunting him, peering into alley ways, ringing door bells,

The Little Review 21

searching rooms, questioning scores who had merely known his name.
They would find him flattened against the wall of the skyscraper
smoking a cigarette.

He thought idly of the things he had planned to say with his
capture. But they were things of another world — masters and slaves,
dignity of murder, blasting a hole in the fat and purblind conscious-
ness of the public through which it might see the vision of wrongs and
crucifixions. The words of the thoughts he had prepared in the
world that no longer existed lost themselves in the dream before
his eyes.

He stared about him. There was something other hunting him
than the police. A vision hunted him, demanding of him new words
to give it life. But he could only think with his eyes. With his eyes
he stared at the vision that had no meaning in his thought — women
swaying under colored dresses, hips jerking as they moved; men with
faces lowered, arms swinging as they moved ; women whose faces
were like lavender corpses — vividly dead things, painted, smeared
with layers of powder ; women with stiffened faces whose cheeks
were hardened into tinsel ; faces with sores showing blue and pink
through a broken enamel ; faces cherubically curved with lips that
smiled and large, irridescent eyes that gleamed with impudence; faces
like brooding gestures; old faces — men without teeth and women
whose jaws quivered and whose eyes shed water; faces twisted out of
human guise ; faces like little whiskered dogs, cunning, sodden, de-
formed into vicious grimaces and stamped with enigmatic despairs
and enigmatic elations; faces of youth — dull, empty, clear-eyed like
little freshets of water. The vision of faces swept by him like the
babble of a strange language. Over them were colours of hair, oily
and rusted colours, blooming with purple, black, red, green and yellow
hats. They bobbed by him — faces, hair and -hats making queer
lithographic masks running before his eyes.

He watched them with an intensity that made him dizzy. Hats
of men like a stretch of crazily-slanted tiny roofs fled before him and
remained always present. Lean-handled buildings swelling like great
clubs at the top, cars clanging and crawling, and the flutter of win-
dows like a swarm of transfixed locusts, passed into his eyes and left
his thought blank. There was no meaning to be read in them.

22 7'he Little Review

They were a vision for eyes alone. Life hunted the people in the
street, pursuing them through the windings of pavements and corri-
dors; an insensate life, like the bay of a galloping hound. Men and
women in a churn, men and women rolling and rattling out of a
dice box. There was no other pattern or tableau.

With the shortened cigarette warming his lips, he remained
against the wall of the skyscraper. His shoulders had become
hunched like those of a man stricken with cold. He seemed to have
withered inside his clothes so that the movements of his body, visible
at his collarless neck and wrists, were like the rattle of a dead nut
inside its shell. His coat and trousers hung from him like garments
heavy with rain, giving him a soggy, voluminous exterior. The
corkscrew bone of his neck slanted punily like a soft candle out of
the grimy socket of his collar. His head had fallen forward as if he
were dozing.

It was twilight and the signs over the sidewalks popped into
vision with freshly-kindled lights. Names and slogans spelled them-
selves against the thin darkness. Commodities, luxuries, trades, food,
drink novelties and schemes of finance jutted their illuminated scrawls
over the pavements, stretching in fantastic unrelation down the sides
of the street. Under them the faces danced. Raising his eyes he
looked again at the window-pitted altitudes now shot with discs of
yellow. The patch of sky that had lain neatly balanced above them
had withdrawn, leaving behind a devouring dark.

He would not be able to talk to the police as he had planned.
The men who were hunting him would come soon and drag him away
from the wall of the skyscraper. His cigarette was long finished. He
searched idly for another. He began to mumble to himself. Where
was everybody going? Everywhere in the world they were moving
like this. He alone wasn't moving. He was not in the hunt. He
had been mistaken or perhaps insane. There was no tableau but a
hunt, a running of faces and hats ; a running of legs and bodies
and jerking hips,

A hand plucked at his elbow. His body became silent. A
thought hurried from him like a frightened little dog. The street
revolved into a blur of hats and windows. His legs inside their
trousers rattled about. Moments later he recalled having heard a

The Little Reviev) 23

voice speaking sharply to him to move on. He remembered having
been jerked by the elbow into the midst of the throng on the side-
walk. Move on ! Then they were still hunting him. No one had
found him. People shot by. The pleasant quivering of his legs
attracted his attention. They were moving as if springs were shooting
them upward. They were mounting something. And his arms
were floating happily. He was running.

Down the street he ran, a hatless, unshaven figure in flapping
trousers. His body jumped up and down and his legs moved as if
they were being blown along. In and out, in and out, past yawning
yellows of theatres and restaurants, past faces that vanished like
unfinished words. His mind was at peace. The nausea was drained
out of it. He was flying. Over cars and under wagons, down curbs
and up little hills of bodies. Men were hunting him, streaming after
him with the gallop and bay of hounds. He opened his mouth and
let out the wildness of his heart.

a Francis Poulene

Bibi'la-Btbiste

(Roman)

par les
Soeurs X. . .

*The author {infant of J should think about eighteen, at any rate can't
he over tiventy) has managed to satirize french religious instruction, french
scientific instruction, Brieux and three schools of modern art ivith remarkable
economy of means. The book is a chef d'oeuvre, — it has all the virtues re-
quired by the academicians — absolute clarity, absolute form, beginning,
middle, end. — E. P.

Que celui d'entre vous qui est sans peche
lui jette le premiere pierre. — {Jean — viii, 7)

CHAPITRE PREMIER

E nfa nee

Sa naissance fut sem-
blable a celle des autres
enfants.

C'est pourquoi on la
nomma Bibi-la-Bibiste.

(Ceci fut I'enfance de
Bibi-la-Bibiste)

CHAPITRE DEUXIEME

Adolescence

Le sang rouge coulait
dans ses arteres; le sang
noir coulait dans ses
veines. ( i )

(Telle fut I'adolescence
de Bibi-la-Bibiste.)

(1) Cf. Caustier; Anatomie et physiotogie animate et <vegetate<.

CHAPITRE TROISIEME

Amour

A seize ans, elle travail-
lait dans un atelier.

— Ai'e ! mon nez me
demange s'ecria-t-elle.

— C'est un vieux qui
t'aime, repondirent ses
compagnes, interrompant
leur chanson.

Une violente emotion la
saisit. Son cceur fit volte-
face dans sa poitrine.

(Telles furent les amours
de Bibi-la-Bibiste.)

CHAPITRE QUATRIEME

Deception

Elle sortit.

Dans la rue populeuse,
les vieux messieurs pas-
saient, nombreux. Bibi-
la-Bibiste les examinait de
son regard anxieux. Mais
aucun ne repondit a son
appel. Un seul lui langa
un coup d'ceil enflamme,
et il etait jeune !

Ne voulant pas s'oppo-
ser aux dessiens myste-
rieux de la Fatalite (1),
Bibi-la-Bibiste poursuivit
son chemin.

( Et ceci f ut la deception
de Bibi-la-Bibiste.)

(1) Nous aurions mis "Providence" si le Roman avail ete destine
a "La Croix."

CHAPITRE CINQUIEME

Rid

eau

Dans un lit d'hopital
s'eteignit Bibi-la-Bibiste.
Comme Marie sa patronne,
comme Jehanne d'Arc,
elle etait vierge. Mais sa
fiche portait la mention
"Syphilitique."

O puissance magique
d'un regard amoureux!)

(Et ceci est le dernier et
le plus tragique chapitre du
roman de Bibi-la-Bibiste.)

Cet Ouvrage a ete tire — Cinquante exemplaires
sur Sirnili Japan, numerotis de 1 a 50

MASK. BY HERMAN ROSSE.

(Third Starveling, for Andreyev's "King Hunger")

The Robin s House

by Djuna Barnes

IN a stately decaying mansion, on the lower end of the Avenue,
lived a woman by the name of Nelly Grissard.
Two heavy rocks stood on either side of the brown stone steps,
looking out toward the park; and in the back garden a foun-
tain, having poured out its soul for many a year, still poured,
murmuring over the stomachs of the three cherubim supporting its
massive basin.

Nelly Grissard was fat and lively to the point of excess. She
never let a waxed floor pass under her without proving herself light
of foot. Every ounce of Nelly Grissard was on the jump. Her fin-
gers tapped, her feet fluttered, her bosom heaved; her entire dia-
phragm swelled with little creakings of whale-bone, lace and taffeta.

She wore feathery things about the throat, had a liking for deep
burgundy silks, and wore six petticoats for the "joy of discovering
that I'm not so fat as they say." She stained her good square teeth
with tobacco, and cut her hair in a bang.

Nelly Grissard was fond of saying: "I'm more French than
human." Her late husband had been French ; had dragged his nation-
ality about with him with the melancholy of a man who had half-
dropped his cloak and that cloak his life, and in the end, having
wrapped it tightly about him, had departed as a Frenchman should.

There had been many "periods" in Nelly Grissard's life, a
Russian, a Greek, and those privileged to look through her key-hole
said even a Chinese.

She believed in "intuition" but it was always first-hand intui-
tion ; sue learned geography by a strict system of love affairs — never
two men from the same part of the country.

She also liked receiving "spirit messages" — they kept her in toucli
with international emotion — she kept many irons in the fire and not
the least of them was the "spiritual" iron.

Then she had what she called a "healing toueh"- — she eould

32 The Little Review

take away headaches, and she could tell by one pass of her hand if
the bump on that particular head was a bump of genius or of avarice
— or if (and she used to shudder, closing her eyes and withdrawing
her hand with a slow, poised and expectant manner) it was the
bump of the senses.

Nelly was, in other words, dangerously careful of her sentimen-
talism. No one but a sentimental woman would have called her
great roomy mansion "The Robin's House," no one but a sentimen-
talist could possibly have lived through so many days and nights of
saying "yes" breathlessly, or could have risen so often from her bed
with such a magnificent and knowing air.

No one looking through the gratings of the basement window
would have guessed at the fermenting mind of Nelly Grissard. Here
well-starched domestics rustled about laying cool fingers on cool
fowls and frosted bottles. The cook, it is true, was a little untidy,
he would come and stand in the entry, when spring was approaching,
and look over the head of Nelly Grissard's old nurse, who sat in a
wheel-chair all day, her feeble hands crossed over a discarded rug of
the favorite burgundy color, staring away with half-melted eyes into
the everlasting fountain, while below the cook's steaming face, on a
hairy chest, rose and fell a faded holy amulet.

Sometimes the world paused to see Nelly Grissard pounce down
the steps, one after another, and with a final swift and high gesture
take her magnificent legs out for a drive, the coachman cracking his
whip, the braided ribbons dancing at the horses' ears.

And that was about all — no, if one cared to notice, a man, in the
early forties, who passed every afternoon just at four, swinging a
heavy black cane.

This man was Nicholas Golwein — half Tartar, half Jew.

There was something dark, evil and obscure about Nicholas
Golwein, and something bending, kindly, compassionate. Yet he
was a very Jew by nature. He rode little, danced less, but smoked
great self-reassuring cigars, and could out-ponder the average fidgety
American by hours.

He had travelled, he had lived as the "Romans lived," and had
sent many a hot-eyed girl back across the fields with something to
forget or remember, according to her nature.

The Little Review 33

This man had been Nelly Grissard's lover at the most depraved
period of Nelly's life. At that moment when she was coloring her
drinking water green, and living on ox liver and "testina en broda,"
Nicholas Golwein had turned her collar back, and kissed her on
that intimate portion of the throat where it has just left daylight, yet
has not barely passed into the shadow of the breast.

To be sure Nelly Grissard had been depraved at an exceedingly
early age, if depravity is understood to be the ability to enjoy what
others shudder at, and to shudder at what others enjoy.

Nelly Grissard dreamed "absolutely honestly" — stress on the ab-
solutely — when it was all the fashion to dream obscurely, — she could
sustain the conversation just long enough not to be annoyingly bril-
liant, she loved to talk of ancient crimes, drawing her stomach in, and
bending her fingers slightly, just slightly, but also just enough to
make the guests shiver a little and think how she really should have
been born in the time of the Cenci. And during the craze for Gau-
guin she was careful to mention that she had passed over the same
South Sea roads, but where Gauguin had walked she had been carried
by two astonished donkeys.

She had been "kind" to Nicholas Golwein just long enough
to make the racial melancholy blossom into a rank tall weed. He
loved beautiful things, and she possessed them. He had become used
to her, had "forgiven" her much (for those who had to forgive at all
had to forgive Nelly in a large way), and the fact that she was too
fluid to need one person's forgiveness long drove him into slow bitter-
ness and despair.

The fact that "her days were on her," and that she did not
feel the usual woman's fear of age and dissolution, nay, that she even
saw new measures to take, and a fertility that only can come of a
decaying mind, drove him almost into insanity.

When the Autumn came, and the leaves were falling from the
trees, as nature grew hot and the last flames of the season licked high
among the branches, Nicholas Golwein's cheeks burned with a dull
red, and he turned his eyes down.

Life did not exist for Nicholas Golwein as a matter of day and
after day — it was flung at him from time to time as a cloak 15 flung
a flunkey, arid this made him proud, morose, silent.

34 T h e L it tl e Re V i ew

Was it not somehow indecent that, after his forgiveness and
understanding, there should be the understanding and forgiveness of
another?

There was undoubtedly something cruel about Nelly Grissard's
love; she took at random, and Nicholas Golwein had been the most
random, perhaps, of all. The others, before him, had all been of her
own class — the first had even married her, and when she finally drove
him to the knife's edge had left her a fair fortune. Nicholas Golwein
had always earned his own living, he was an artist and lived as
artists live. Then Nelly came — and went — and after him she had
again taken one of her own kind, a wealthy Norwegian — Nord, a
friend of Nicholas.

Sometimes now Nicholas Golwein would go off into the country,
trying to forget, trying to curb the tastes that Nelly's love had nour-
ished. He nosed out small towns, but he always came hurriedly back,
smelling of sassafrass, the dull penetrating odor of grass, contact with
trees, half-tamed animals.

The country made him think of Schubert's Unfinished Sym-
phony — he would start running — running seemed a way to complete
all that was sketchy and incomplete about nature, music, love.

"Would I recognize God if I saw him?" the joy of thinking
such thoughts was not everyman's, and this cheered him.

Sometimes he would go to see Nord ; he was not above visiting
Nelly's lover — in fact there was that between them.

He had fancied death lately. There was a tremendously sterile
quality about Nicholas Golwein's fancies, they were the fancies of
a race, and not of a man.

He discussed death with Nord — before the end there is some-
thing pleasant in a talk of a means to an end, and Nord had the cold-
ness that makes death strong.

"I can hate," he would say, watching Nord out of the corner
of his eye; "Nelly can't, she's too provincial — "

"Yes, there's truth in that. Nelly's good to herself — what more
is there?"

"There's understanding," he meant compassion, and his eyes
filled. "Does she ever speak of me?"

It was begining to rain. Large drops struqk softly against

'^-\o

T h e L it 1 1 e R e V i e w 35

the cafe window and thinning out ran down upon the sill.

"Oh yes."

"And she says?"

"Why are you never satisfied with what you have, Nicholas?"

Nicholas Golwein turned red. "One dish of cream and the cat
should lick his paws into eternity. I suppose one would learn how
she felt, if she feels at all, if one died."

"Why, yes, I suppose so."

They looked at each other, Nicholas Golwein in a furtive man-
ner, moving his lips around his cigar — Nord absently, smiling a little,
"Yes, that would amuse her."

"What?" Nicholas Golwein paused in his smoking and let his hot
eyes rest on Nord.

"Well, if you can manage it — "

Nicholas Golwein made a gesture, shaking his cufiF-links like a
harness — "I can manage it" he said, wondering what Nord was
thinking.

"Of course it's rather disgusting," Nord said.

"I know, I know I should go out like a gentleman, but there's
more in me than the gentleman, there's something that understands
meanness, a Jew can only love and be intimate with the thing that's
a little abnormal, and so I love what's low and treacherous and cun-
ning, because there's nobility and uneasiness in it for me — well," he
flung out his arms — "If you were to say to Nell, he hung himself
in the small hours, with a sheet — what then? Everything she had
ever said to me, been to me, will change for her — she won't be able to
read those French journals in the same way, she won't be able to
swallow water as she has always swallowed it. I know, you'll say
there's nature and do you know what I'll answer: that I have a con-
tempt for animals — just because they do not have to include Nelly
Grissard's whims in their means to a living conduct — well listen, I've
made up my mind to something" — he became calm all of a sudden
and looked Nord directly in the face.

"Well?"

"I shall follow you up the stairs, stand behind the door, and
you shall say just these words 'Nicholas has hung himself."

"And then what?"

'^-U

36 TheLittleReview

"That's all, that's quite sufficient — then I shall know everything.

Nord stood up, letting Nicholas open the cafe door for him.

"You don't object?" Nicholas Golwein murmured.

Nord laughed a cold, insulting laugh. "It will amuse her — "

Nicholas nodded, "Yes, we've held the coarse essentials between
our teeth like good dogs — " he said, trying to be insulting in turn,
but it only sounded pathetic, sentimental.

Without a word passing between them, on the following day,
they went up the stairs of Nelly Gissard's house, together. The
door into the inner room was ajar, and Nicholas crept in behind this,
seating himself on a little table.

He heard Nord greet Nelly, and Nelly's voice answering — "Ah
dear" — he listened no further for a moment, his mind went back,
and he seemed to himself to be peaceful and happy all at once. "A
binding up of old sores" he thought, a oneness with what was good
and simple — with everything that evil had not contorted.

"Religion," he thought to himself, resting his chin on his hands —
thinking what religion had meant to all men at all times, but to no
man in his most need. "Religion is a design for pain — that's it."
Then he thought, that, like all art, must be fundamentally against
God— God had made his own plans — well, of that later —

Nelly had just said something — there had been a death-like
silence, then her cry, but he had forgotten to listen to what it was
that had passed. He changed hands on his cane. "There is someone
in heaven" he found his mind saying. The rising of this feeling was
pleasant — it seemed to come from the very centre of his being.
"There's someone in heaven — who?" he asked himself, "who?" but
there was no possible answer that was not blasphemy.

"Jews do not kill themselves — "

Nelly's voice. He smiled — there was someone in heaven, but
no one here. "I'm coming" he murmured to himself — and felt a sen-
suous giving away in the promise.

His eyes filled. What was good in death had been used up
long ago — now it was only dull repetition — death had gone beyond
the need of death.

Funnily enough he thought of Nelly as she was that evening

"F-

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 37

when she had something to forgive. He had pulled her toward him
by one end of a burgundy ribbon, "Forgive, forgive," and she had
been kind enough not to raise him, not to kiss him, saying "I forgive"
— she just stood there showing her tobacco-stained teeth in a strong
laugh, "Judas elimininated." He put his hand to his mouth, "I have
been There," and There seemed like a place where no one had ever
been. How cruel, how monstrous!

Someone was running around the room, heavy, ponderous. "She
always prided herself on her lightness of foot," and here she was
running like a trapped animal, making little cries "By the neck!" —
strange words, horrifying — unreal —

"To be a little meaner than the others, a little more crafty" —
well, he had accomplished that too.

Someone must be leaning on the couch, it groaned. That took
him back to Boulogne, he had loved a girl once in Boulogne, and
once in the dark they had fallen, it was like falling through the sky,
through the stars, finding that the stars were not only one layer thick,
but that there were many layers, millions of layers, a thickness to
them, and a depth — then the floor — that was like a final promise of
something sordid, but lasting — firm.

Sounds rose from the streets, automobiles going up town, horses'
hoofs, a cycle siren, that must be a child, long drawn out, and pierc-
ing — yes, only a child would hold on to a sound like that.

"Life is life," Nelly had just said, firmly, decisively. After all
he had done this well — he had never been able to think of death long,
but now he had thought of it, made it pretty real — he remembered
sparrows, for some unknown reason, and this worried him.

"The line of the hips, simply Renoir over again — "

They were on the familiar subject of art.

The sounds in the room twittered about him like wings in a
close garden, w^here there is neither night nor day. "There is a
power in death, even the thought of death, that is very terrible and
very beautiful — " His cane slipped, and struck the floor.

"What was that?" the voice of Nelly Grissard was high, excited,
startled —

"A joke."

Nicholas Golwein suddenly walked into the room.

38 The Little Review

"A joke," he said and looked at them both, smiling.

Nelly Grissard, who was on her knees, and who was holdin;^
Nord's shoe in one hand, stared at him. It seemed that she must
have been about to kiss Nord's foot.

Nicholas Golwein bowed, a magnificent bow, and was about
to go.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself" Nelly Grissard cried,
angrily, and got to her feet.

He began to stammer: "I — I am leaving town — I wanted to
pay my respects — "

"Well, go along with you — "

Nicholas Golwein went out, shutting the door carefully behind
him.

Lions' Jaws

by Mina Loy

FAR away on the Benign Peninsular

That automatic fancier of lyrical birds
Danriel Gabrunzir
with melodious magnolia
perfumes his mis-en-scene
where impotent neurotics
wince at the dusk

40 The Little Review

The national arch-angel

loved

several countesses

in a bath full of tuberoses

soothed by the orchestra

at the 'Hotel Majestic Palace'

the sobbing
from the psycho-pathic wards
of his abandoned harem
purveys amusement for 'High Life'

The comet conquerer

show^ers upon continental libraries

translated stars

accusations of the alcove

w^here

with a pomaded complaisance

he trims rococco liasons

. a tooth-tattoo of an Elvira
into a Maria's flesh

And every noon

bare virgins riding alabaster donkeys

receive Danriel Gabrunzio

from the Adriatic

in a golden bath-towel

signed with the zodiac

in pink chenille

Defiance of old idolatries
inspires new schools

Danriel Gabrunzio's compatriots
concoct new courtships
to intrigue

T h e Li 1 1 le Review 41

the myriad-fleshed Mistress
of "the Celebrated"

The antique envious thunder

of Latin litterateurs J

rivaling Gabrunzio's satiety

burst in a manifesto

notifying women's w^ombs

of Man's immediate agamogenesis

Insurance
of his spiritual integrity
against the carniverous courtesan

Manifesto
of the flabbergast movement
hurled by the leader Raminetti
to crash upon the audacious lightening
of Gabrunzio's fashions in lechery
. . . and wheedle its inevitable way
to the "excepted" woman's heart
her cautious pride
extorting betrayal
of Woman wholesale
to warrant her surrender
with a sense of . . . Victory

Raminetti

cracked the whip of the circus-master

astride a prismatic locomotive

ramping the tottering platform

of the Arts

of which this conjuring commercial traveller

imported some novelties from

Paris in his pocket

souvenirs for his disciples

to flaunt

at his dynamic carnival

The erudite Bapini

42 TheLittleReview

experimenting

in auto-hypnotic God-head

an a mountain

rolls off as Raminetti's plastic velocity

explodes his crust

of library dust

and hurrying threatening nakedness

to a Vermillion ambush

in flabbergastism

. . . he kisses Raminetti

full on his oratory

in the arena

rather fancying Himself

in the awesome proportions

of an eclectic mother-in-law

to a raw menage.

Thus academically chaperoned

the flabbergasts

blaze from obscurity

to deny their creed in cosy corners

to every feminine opportunity

and Raminetti

anxious to get a move on this beating-Gabrunzio-business

possesses the women of two generations

except a few

who jump the train at the next station . . .

. . . while the competitive Bapini

publishes a pretty comment

involving woman in the plumber's art

and advertises

his ugliness as an excellent aphrodisiac

Shall manoeuvres in the new manner !

pass unremarked?

• • • ""

These amusing men

T h e L i 1 1 1 e Re V i e w 43

discover in their mail

duplicate petitions

to be the lurid mother of "their" flabbergast child

from Nima Lyo, alias Anim Yol, alias

Imna Oly

(secret service buffoon to the Woman's Cause)

While flabbergastism boils over
and Ram : and Bap :
avoid each other's sounds
This Duplex-Conquest
claims a "sort of success"
for the Gabrunzio resisters.

?tVOl

Raminetti gets short sentences

for obstructing public thoroughfares

Bapini is popular in "Vanity Fair"

As for Imna Oly

I agree with Mrs. Krar Standing Hail

She is not quite a lady.

Riding the sunset
DANRIEL GABRUNZIO

corrects

the lewd precocity

of Raminetti and Bapini

with his sonorous violation of Fiume

and drops his eye

into the fatal lap

of Italy.

Southern IVomen

by Stephen Hudson

I PAUSED a moment at the corner and looked down the line
of acacia trees. Their leaves were rustling, rhythmically it
struck me, very softly One, two, three, it would be about
the fifth tree, there were three steps. If she were sitting there,
I might be passing and stop to speak. If not, well, if not . . .
I could see the white mass of the Capitol, faint voices reached me,
singing. It was a steaming hot night. I took out my handkerchief
and wiped my forehead, glad I remembered to scent it. My breath
came irregularly, something between the lower part of my chest and
my throat fell and rose, alternately opening and blocking the channel.
It was very absurd that I couldn't stop it, I could stop it by turning
round and walking the other way. But I wanted to see her tre-
mendously, to hear her voice, breathe her air. Annabel. Annabel
and Mary Lee. Hadn't I read . . .? I got as far as the third
tree and stopped again, looking. It was light still, beastly light.
And the party on the stoop to my right were watching me. Some-
body laughed. I sweated, took out my handkerchief again, crossed
the street nonchalantly. I walked on very slowly. They were both
there and a man. Spurr! What a piece of luck.

"Come right up, Mr. Lane, won't yew. Mr. Spurr. Mr. Lane
from London. Yewer from London, Mr. Lane, aren't yew? Isn't
it haat? Gee, — where's my fan. Jack? Come an' sett raaght here,
Mister Lane. Now, altogether. Away down South in Dixie land."
She waved her hand, Spurr picked two or three times at the
strings, the three joined in, she smiled down on me. Fancy it's being
as easy as that. Jessie, Emma Joe, Frank Fogg, Burton Trent. Up
and down the steps, some with cushions, some without. I kept my
seat below Annabel, it was twilight, her gold slipper was on my
step, the tip very near my leg, it was under my leg. "We'll hang
John Brown on a sour apple tree." The little toes moved up and
down in time to the singing.

T h e Lit 1 1 e Re V i e w 45

It was dusk. Spurr and Mary Lee had disappeared. Singing
ceased. Someone proposed the drugstore and ice cream soda. We
trailed along in couples. We were alone. How d'yew like Nash-
ville, Mr. Lane? So that's the soft Southern voice. It is soft. She
wore a light veil round her blondined hair, curved her head down
and looked up. I had known no girls. Ought I to try . . . too
soon . . , Nashville is fascinating . . . she knows that
word, they use it a lot. D'yew mean that? D'yew like the gurls
How can you ask, how could one, how could I, . .

Now, Mister Lane, but isn't he just sweet . . . How's Nancy
Bright? D'yew know, I knew Nancy Bright when I was ever so
little . . . sweet she waas . . , and to think she's your ant
Pressure on my arm. I hold hers close. She bends her
head down and up again and smiles, lovely teeth in the moonlight.
We all meet at the corner drugstore with its soda fountain and
man in white jacket to tend it. What's yours? Isn't that just
lovelly? Goodbyes at the door, Frank Fogg has organised a party to
drive to the Gap tomorrow. Won't that be lovelly?

We walk back as before, we linger at a side avenue, how far
can I go? There seems to be nothing to say. What do the others
talk about? I continue to press her arm, we reach the steps; to-
morrow at eleven. Won't it be lovelly? The downward bend of
the head. Goodnight, Mister Lane.

Are they all looks, these Southern women? What does one
say to them? And if I say No, it is as though I said Yes. There is,
then, no meaning in words for them. She bends her head, she shows
her teeth, her legs. What would I say if I were older and knew
all about women everywhere? Where is my fear of tonight? Where
is my caring of tonight? Left at the drug-store in the ice-cream
soda.

My steps led me to the Capitol. A group of negroes singing
under the moon. Must have been there for hours, for I heard their
voices faintly all the evening. How well they sing in chorus, here
and there a banjo, a concertina. At the end of the half circle, a
large woman with a coloured handkerchief on her shoulders looks
at me meaningly. I sit on the parapet near her, looking back at
her.

46 TheLittleReview

Carry me back to ole Tennessee, the voices drone out into the still
night in perfect ryhthm. She moves away slowly. I can see her
standing in the shadows. None of them seems to notice. I follow
her. She walks on, faster now. She leaves the main streets and
turns up a narrow one, lighted rarely. She stops and waits for me.

"Yewse cummin' with me, honey?"

I nod.

A shack of a house. I forbade her to light the lamp. She cast
her garment from her. I bade her stand where the moonlight could
search and expose the beauty of her body half in shadow. I made
her stand there and drank in the beauty of her bronze body. I gave
her five dollars to stand there for five minutes and then I went
my way.

Tomorrow I shall drive with Annabel and she will say,

"Isn't Nashville lovelly, Mr. Lane?"

Poems

by Else von Freytag-Loringhoven

Appalling Heart

CITY stir — wind on eardrum —
dancewind : herbstained —
flowerstained — silken — rustling —
tripping — swishing — frolicking —
courtesing — careening — brushing —
flowing — lying down — bending —
teasing — kissing : treearms — grass —
limbs — lips.

City stir on eardrum — .
In night lonely

peers — : J

moon — riding! P?^

pale — with beauty aghast — ~ \

too exalted to share !

in space blue — rides she away from mine chest —
illumined strangely —
appalling sister!

Herbstained — flowerstained —

shellscented — seafaring —

foresthunting — junglewise —

desert gazing —

rides heart from chest —

lashing with beauty —

a fleet —

across chimney —

tinfoil river

to meet

another's dark heart !

Bless mine feet !

48 T h e Lit tl e Review

B las t

TAKE spoon — scapel —
Scrape brains clear from you-
how it hurts to be void!
blast flew
over twin hillocks
emeroyd.

singeing — seering satanic stink —
flew — blew —
blushroses !
barren grew —
to you —
annoyed
protruding
sharp :

pointed pyramids
silence — d rums —
— sphinx —
I smother —
pranked mother —
from stark things! ! !
stark kings in rockchamber
mockeye set amber
within mine chest! ! !
to rest —
no!

ripple — glide — quiver :
Nile
river !
overflow !
hillocks inundated
abated

blush ■

blushroses!

on twin hillocks '' ■ '

smaragd isle ! ?

awhile — awhile — ! '

T h e L it 1 1 e Re V i e w 49

M on s ton e

LAKE — palegreen — shrouded —
skylake — clouded — shrouded —
yearning — blackblue —
sickness of heart — ^

pomgranate hue —
sickness of longing —

you!

In cloud — nay — ach — shroud —

nay — ach — shroud — !

of — breast —

sickness of longing

gulps

pomegranate hue

from heart in chest —

palegreen lake in chest !

— you!

Heart
(Dance of Shiva)

AROUND me hovers presence that thou art,
secretly atmosphere draws cloudy — dense —
perfume athwart mine cheekbone swings intense-
smile on mine lip —
I kiss thee —
with mine heart!

Ja — with mine heart —

that can perform fine tricks

since it is housed with wizzardry and art — !

soul — how enchanted art thou —

by such heart! !

Ho! — lover far — :

50 T h e L it tl e Re V i ew

C ath edral

WHY didst thou go away from me?
Say — why ?
art not enslaved by balmy wizzardry
out of mine jewelled eye?
not by mine lips — so softly passionate —
so passionately soft
with harnessed strength —
in bridled strain —

musk — amber — myrrh and francincense—
gold — damask — ivory —
mine gothic cathedral —
is that upbuild in vain
for thee — ?
the whom I shall desire —
to pray?
art nor thou worshipper nor devotee?

Thus stand I desolate —

priest to mine tarnished self —

light tapers stately — upon jadeworsted shelf —

not to decay.

Is It?

IT is — is it — ?
heart white sheet!
kiss it
flame beat!
in chest midst
print teeth

bite •

this green
ponderous night.

T h e L i 1 1 1 e Re V iew 51

Gihirda 'J' Dance

NOSE straight
smile flower
unfolding in sun of love.
Petals: large — sweet

overwhelming cinnamon-scented — almond — sandal — rose-carmine —
tuberose

cheekpale in ray of moon torch

ghosts — with strength of ghosts — enticing as passion in graveyard of
flesh dead —

— alive

remembering.

Hands cupped in greed of tissues parched —
owner's wolfheart — !
devotion simple as child's suckled —
eyes of god drink out of tankard

of palm mine face's palegold champagne.
Whereas now thine polar-bear's sinister ivorywhite mouth black —
black lips cruel tender pluck
purple black in face white —
Tremble — ?
not weep — !
I — thou.

Tombstone — lie I beneath
weight — passionate weight —
pallor — !
not life shall call
from stoneheaviness'
encompassing weight.
Eyes of god drain from veins cinnamonscented rosedisks carmine:

to blend —
thou — I.

No move — !

from mine thine cheek not part

dual rock — on Nile — rigid:

52 T he Little Review

sough !

Heart stripped — men approach —

tinkling rhythm — bells — howling —

draft — eternit}' —

silence of void — earsplitting —

movement —

dance —

Gihirda's dance.

Das Fin s ter e Meer
(an Vate7^)

WIR fuhren am finstern Strande
Der Himmel hing wollcenschwer
Die Wellen rollten zum Lande
Und rannen zuriick in das Meer
Gurgelnd brach sich das Wasser
Am Tang und am Muschelsaum
Die Muscheln schimmerten blasser
Als Kirchenbliiten am Baum
Durchdringe und leise klagend
Schrillte der Move schrei
Ueber die Wellen jagend
Fegte sie blitzend vorbei.

Meine verschiittete Seele

Mochte schreien wie sie

In ihrer heiseren Keh'e " ':

Pfiflt des Orkans melodie.

Warum meines Herzens Gedanken
Mogt ihr nicht blitzen wie sie
O warum tramen und kranken
Mit dem Feind am Knie.

THE
UTTLE MYIEW

Editor:

Margaret Anderson

Foreign Editors:

John Rodker Jules Romains

Advisory Board

Discussion

The ^^ Others'' Anthology
by John Rodker

OTHERS," after various phases, has now achieved a
second anthology which appears to have settled into
that steady poetical jog-trot, the "townsman's guide
to nature," known as Georgian poetry. It is therefore not unfitting
that Conrad Aiken should start this plump ball rolling with a "Con-
versation: Undertones" which is part Hueffer's "To all the Dead,"
part Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady," but in form so incredibly faded,
so emasculated (must the Athenaeum now set the tone of "Others"),

54 The Little Review

while the rare words, the mock poetical images, the detritus of every
poet that has ever been, are worked into an owl's pellet. If Mr.
Aiken had control of his emotion, if he had clearness, if his borrowed
images were not continually ruined by manhandling, the "Portrait
of One Dead" would be a fine poem. Something it undoubtedly has,
but his smooth metres are such as lull the reader into an unquestioning
acquiescence.

"Your words were walls which suddenly froze round her
Your words were windows — large enough for moonlight."

— how thin all this is, yet how exquisitely it has the colour of poetry: —

"or through windy corridors of darkening end."

whatever that may mean.

Carnevali's feelings are as yet too personal for them to get
across.

When are we to have done with this eternal cinema which is
what most America poetry now seems to be. Surely Scribner's is the
place for H. L. Davis anyhow.

Donald Evans has the magnificent soul of a poet — could he only
write !

"In which room shall it be tonight — darling?
His eyes swept the broad facade, the windows
Tier upon tier and his lips were regnant:
In every room, my beloved !"

Frost out of Georgian Poetry is now in "Others," His stuff is
at any rate felt, he has a reserve worth expressing, but why it should
be poetry — God knows! Masters still influences,

Giovanitti is also too much occupied by a myriad influences to be
able to sustain his prison biography.

Gould calls the snowflakes "oblivious white nuns," He also calls
the night a "vast unlighted church," My God! !

Marsden Hartley's cinematographies are abominable. The pal-
triest film has more guts. All these folks seem to think poetry is a

TheLittleReview 55

polite after dinner amusement like musical chairs. (Perhaps it is in
America.)

Or rick Johns's cinema play "Kysen" is at least in colours and has
beauty and he has made images.

Fenton Johnson is spoonrivering with a vengeance. More blood,
less guts ; but why must every American wagon be hitched to a star.
In "Tired" the worst lines, apart from their irrelevance, are:

Pluck the stars out of the heavens. The stars
mark our destiny. The stars marked my destiny.

Kreymborg's poetry is still a succession of afterthoughts. With
Vachel Lindsay's "Daniel Jazz" it is obvious that "Others" has now
made up its mind to find a "place in the sun." And indeed it is time
Kreymborg had a competence. A community should be satisfied
when it has got all it can out of the first thirty years of a man's life.
After that it should give him what he most wants — money, fame,
leisure, women, etc.

Haniel Long's students are good little vignettes — but they would
have been equally good in prose and perhaps not then so rich in anti-
climaxes.

When he looms in the rear of the room
like a peak in the Andes

the lines following: —

but how would you like to teach
a peak in the Andes

are indubitably a mistake. Number 5, 6, 15 are good vignettes.

Mina Loy appears to be the only poet in this bag who is really
preoccupied with that curious object THE SOUL. It is painful
to notice that since the last "Others" she appears to have lost grip.
Nor is she less guilty in the matter of "that little afterthought" than
her confreres. Her effort is however very much more distinguished.

The same is true of Marianne Moore, whose really very rich
pyramids are, I now think, a quite sufficient justification, though bits
of the plaster are sadly trivial.

56 The Little Review

my soul shall

never

be cut into

by a wooden spear.

"The Fish" is the best poem in the anthology because it has been
felt more and worked at more; by a more original mind.

Lola Ridge! ! !

Sanborn : a description of a fight and is it believable without
one seen adjective — one illuminating phrase. Simply a pastiche of
every sporting description speeded up.

M. A. Seiffert and Evelyn Scott! ! !

Wallace Stevens's new poems do not interest me as much as
his last, but the "Exposition of the Contents of a Cab" is by its close-
ness and formality a model for all the inventories in this book.

Williams's "Herbarium" seems to me uninteresting. It is a
detailed inventory of various herbs, but they are in no way linked
to life. I would condemn him to silence when he is not writng poems
like "Spring-Strains" which is, for a variety of reasons, the best
American poem I know.

It would seem then that the most difficult thing for a Georgian
poet is to say something when he has nothing to say. There is cer-
tainly a distinct falling off in the quality of the "Others." True, most
anthologies behave similarly.

John Rodkers Fj^og
by Mina Loy

HERE did I hear of two smooth frogs
clasped among rushes
in love and death" . . .

Where indeed ! But perhaps to be loved like a frog is the best
way to be loved by Mr. Rodker, so after all the lady addressed on

*"I'd have loved you as you deserved had we been frogs." Hymns, by
John Rodker. The Ovid Press.

The Little Review 57

page 24 of "Hymns"* probably got all she deserved.

And here in the Little Review we have Rodker playing frog
to America — ^no wonder he is impressed by Donald Evans "In every
room, my beloved !" — and a little jealously wishes he could only write
— no fun being beaten at both games.

On the other hand had he his way with Marsden Hartley he
would put guts into "film," and even demands guts of Spoonriver
but why must every American wagon be hitched to Mr.
Rodker's guts?

From Orrick Johns he takes his "least" in colours, from Fenton
Johnson "the worst lines apart from their irrelevance."

He objects to Carlos Williams shouting while he writes "Her-
bariums" — my! we have good ears in England, — while he cannot
understand how the end of a corridor should look dark; his eyes
being less efficient than his ears; cinematographs tire him.

Our cousinly critic is most solicitous of Mr. Kreymborg's comfort
during middle age, but Mr, Kreymborg committed a nasty little sex
suicide when he "would be" ... "a woman big with gentle
yielding"; he suggests a posthumous antidote, state provision of what
he most wants — money, fame, leisure, women — never mind what the
women want . . . well, most of them must content themselves
with exclamation marks, according to Mr. Rodker.

From the frog to . . . " 'The Fish' ... is the best
poem in the Antholog>%" and "the most difficult thing for a Georgian
poet is to say something w^hen he has nothing to say" — more difficult
by far for American to say nothing, when there is so much to be said.

Note. For information on the love of frogs the reader may purchase
Margaret Sanger's book, which will help boost the Birth Control Movement,
aiming to suppress the only indulgence of frogs.

58 The Little Review

Thomas V au ghan
by Mary Butts

I MUST apologize to Mr. Foster Damon for my neglect to
answer his letter in the April number on my review of the
works of Thomas Vaughan which appeared in March, but 1
have been out of England for some months, and only lately received
my copies.

I found in Vaughan's works (to whose study I had come with
great anticipation) a vice which seems inherent in so much mystical
writing and which has nothing to do with contemporary fashions
of expression or fears of censorship, but which comes from a want
of quality in the intelligence. Significant expressions of truth are
clear in statement, they are not misleading, vague, or tiresome. This
clarity is the common factor in science, contemplation, and art. The
first chapter out of St. John's gospel, and the "Origin of Species"
are linked by it. When one considers the nature of the mystic's
research is it too much to demand the same precision?

Professional mystics however will have their mysticism a mystery,
one result of which is that the "uninitiate" gives it up, the man in
some stage of "initiation" knows enough to resent the half deception.
As to the fear of persecution which Mr. Damon thinks might
influence Vaughan's successors today — I can only say that as good
men as he have faced it, and that any profound knowledge of reality
usually makes its possessor not only confident, and indifferent to its
results in the world, but capable of stating it under an adequate
formula.

I defy any one who reads Vaughan not to be reminded of the
penny worth of bread and the intolerable deal of sack.

JVilliam Carlos JVilliams^ ^^ Kara in HelF^
by Else von Freytag-Loringheven

(See page 59)

The Little Review 59

The following five pages were originally given
over to a very interesting review of William Carlos
Williams's new book, "Kore in Hell", by Else von
Freytaf-Loringhoven. The article, one of the most
intelligent pieces of critism that has ever come to us
was neverthelees marred for me, by certain redun-
dancies of thinking that destroyed the power and
piquancy of the whole. With great skill (or so I
thought) my editorial insight accomplised the neces-
sary revisions. But the author disagreed with me
so violently that we agreed to omit the article un-
til next month, when it will appear in its original
form.

The policy of the Little Review has alwaya
been : a free stage for the artist. There are
moments when I believe this to be an uninteresting
policy. — M. C. A.

60 The Little keviev)

A Note on Minns
by Hart Crane

An ignorance of the professional, technical "elements" of photog-
raphy, it seems to me, should very slightly, if at all, invalidate one's
claim to the appreciation of such work as that of H. W. Minns. In
his case, my appreciation can begin only where the fundamental peda-
gogics of the camera leave off, — at the point where the craftsman
merges into the artist, — where the creative element becomes distinct.
Some combination of eye and sympathy and hand are subtly respon-
sible for the quality in his work. His "arrangements" are not the
empty, obvious contortions of so many modern photographers. He
plainly could not content himself with that. There is, in his faces,
the urge of an ethical curiosity and sympathy as strongly evident
as in the novels of Henry James. Undoubtedly his portraits are
deeper, more vivid, than the daily repetitions of his sitters in their
mirrors give back to any but themselves, but this is only to mention
again the creative element that gives to his portraits such a sense of
drmatic revelations.

Mr. Minns has often exhibited in Europe, and has received
extensive recognition at Dresden, Vienna, and Copenhagen exhibi-
tions. He began taking pictures when he was considerably beyond
thirty, and has since spent some twenty years working in the rather
limited and unresponsive locality of Akron, Ohio.

HERVEY MINNS

PHOTOGRAPH BY HERVEY MINNS

64 The Little Review

ANNO UN CEMENT

The LiiiXe Review has secured a
remarkable novel by Mary Butts,
"Ashe of Rings," which will begin
serially in the January number.

Other Books
by John Rodker

Poemes Juifs. Andre Spire. Edition of L'Ev entail.

Geneva.

THESE hard, matter of fact poems, so real, so jewishly real,
so unlike M. Aragon's poetical poems, have one hundred per
cent efficiency and are terrible in their strength. For the
jew who has suffered, who finds that despite his age-old instincts he
has neverthless assimilated himself to the nation of his adoption — must
live in it scorning its excesses ; unable to comprehend them or their
devotion to a heaven and hell and mean self interest, — what fate
could be harder, what exile more intorlerable ?

The jew lies like a rye grain buried in fat and bursting wheat
ears. For a time as he sees how completely he has swallowed the

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 65

habits of the wheat ear, its exquisite intonations, its passion to get out-
side itself in a wild pursuit of objets-d'arts, he may even persuade
himself that he is "one of them." Yet always he must see himself
eventually nameless, an eternal Schlemihl.

This is the burden of M. Spire's book. This static body in
the midst of flux, a static body that would like to flow too but
cannot.

"Je venais de mon rude pays de sel, d'oolithe, de fer
ou la riviere empoissonnee de soude" * * *

If you think "art is the whole caboose" you will find these poems
artless. But I think of M. Spire as a very good poet with a capacity
for feeling; for suffering which would have done credit to Walt
Whitman.

La Connaissance, Paris, 2 fr, 50, June and July

BOTH numbers contain a series of letters by Stendhal dated
1873. The July number has an amusing study "Alba ou les
parturitions d'une jeune malthusienne." For the rest it is
a very well informed little journal with quite the best sentiments.

THE Dial for August has an appalling, an abominable, an in-
conceivable "London" letter from Mr. Shanks full of the
damnation of faint praise which begins: "It is told that the
late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain" . . .

Its translations from Rimbaud though unsigned are superb. I
would give much to know who was responsible for them :

ILLUMINATIONS (IV)

In the wood is a bird, its song stops you and makes you blush.

There is a clock which does not strike.

There is a gully with a nest of white animals.

There is a cathedral that descends and z, lake that climbs.

66 T h e Lit tl e Re V i ew

There is a little carriage, abandoned in the shrubbery, or that comes

down the path, running, beribboned.
There is a troop of little comedians in costume, seen in the road across
liOi,£;.;i ■ the edge of the wood.
Finally, when you are hungry and thirsty, there is somebody who

chases you away.

Mr. Hueffer is entertaining on the subject of the ungenuous-
ness of Mr. Wells.

Feu dejoie, Louis Aragon. Au Sam Pareil. 3 fr. 50.

"^HESE remarkably mature poems by a prominent Dadaiste
are eminently reasonable, so much so that this book seems
to me quite the most interesting contemporary French work
I have seen. Poetry — dead in France since Verlaine (dead then you
may perhaps say), with only the exception of Apollinaire and de
Gourmont — appears to be looking up. Certainly "Soifs de I'ouest"
is astonishingly good. Part metrically and part in its subject matter
this poem is interestingly like Mr. Eliot's preludes,

"Dans ce bar dont la porte '

Sans cesse bat au vent

une affiche ecarlate h

Vante un autre savon
^ Dansez dansez ma chere

nous avons des banjos.
Oh p

qui me donnera seulement a macher
les chewing-gums inutiles
qui parfument tres doucement
I'haleine des filles des villes

Epices dans I'alcool mesure par les pailles

et menthes sans raison barbouillant les liqueur.^

The Little Review 67

il est des amours sans douceurs
dans les docks sans poissons ou la barmaid
defaille.
"Pour demain" is a most charming poem. Many influences are
of course discernible in his work : — Corbiere, Rimbaud, ApoUinaire,
Baudelaire, but this is as it should be since M. Aragon is young, and
the important thing is that it should have been a natural task that led
him to them. Nobody ever claimed a corner in ideas.

"Secousse" is a good poem. "Vie de Jean Baptiste A" has these
impressive lines:

La premier arrive au fond du corridor
123456789 10 MORT
une ombre au milieu du soleil dort c'est I'oeil

From images like "Tu gardes Failure!
Du papier glace

and

"Mais le voix Non
Sur un ton de lave

it is obvious that we are here in contact with a very good mind indeed.
"Lever" is a long poem, perhaps not altogether sustained, but suffi-
ciently important to induce one to await M. Aragon's future work
with anxiety.

''The City Curious'' by yean de Bosschere,
Heineman 12-6

THIS sinister litle story and its equally sinister decorations is
another of those books for children which grown-ups buy
for their own delectation. Yet an imaginative child will like
this somewhat ornate story of a people composed of slabs of cake and
whose aliment is entirely jams and syrups. Unlike Alice in Won-

^- 1

68 T he Lit tie Review

derland, which is eminently reasonable if a little extravagant, this
story has no roots in reality. It is certainly not the behaviour of
one's grown-ups gone suddenly good.

At any rate M. de Bosschere makes his curious vision absorb-
ingly interesting and one rushes through the book for the denoue-
ment as in a detective story.

"The Despoiler, who was always afraid that Some One would
find out that he was only made of Cardboard, never slept in public,"
is the most extraordinary of these characters and the drawing of the
despoiler asleep in a tall attic with a blanket nailed across the win-
dows is terrifying. M. de Bosschere is certainly the most accom-
plished artist engaged in illustrating books, and his special sense of the
decorative quality of black and white and his purity of line are a
great pleasure. The colour reproductions are rather dirty and give
but a vague idea of the gaiety of his colour and his delicious sense of
decoration.

The Sackbut,'' London, Monthly 10s. Nos 1-5

THE Sackbut is an addition to London's musical papers — if they
exist ; and we welcome the asperity of its opinions and the
violence of its correspondence. It is trying to do for music
what the Little Review does for literature, and boosts chiefly Bernard
van Dieren, Kaikoshru Sorabji, and in passing Delius. Its recent
passage with Mr. Ernest Newman was a model of this kind of thing,
though Mr. Gray would have been less amusing had he not quoted
in every line of his truly ponderous onslaughts enough great names ta
supply the whole of the Comtist calendar.

The Sackbut's literature is supplied by Robert Nichols and
Mr. Arthur Symons, whom we are surprised to find is still writing.
The results can be imagined. The text of the Sackbut is enlivened
by actual examples of its musical standards, and the series of con-
certs which it intends to give in order to bring its readers up to the
editorial mark promises to be interesting.

F -I

The Little Review 69

Essen tial s
by Robert McAlmon

ASK "jh" too whether one must be "strange," "compelling,"
"original" at all costs, or whether it is well to be these only
when you mark an advance, or at least grant value equal
to the "old." There is a disease "modern traditionalism" that has
little to do with art, or life. A "modern" who counts, is surprisingly
like a "classic" in scope of comprehension, and neither of them deal
with the dry chaff of words, manner, and form, until they have some
content in which they themselves have faith to put into form, via
words and manner.

Art is essential? If life is. You can take your pick of which is
the bigger thing — life, art, religion, science. If art is essential, it is so
because of the live significance of it. A James Branch Cabell, Anatole
France, type of erudition-wrought writing, with rejuggled philoso-
phies and theories that come from reading rather than from contact,
physical and mentally perceptive, is deadly, but it does have some
degree of "understanding" within it. A D. H. Lawrence sullen bull
intensity without the clarity of intelligence, or the area, is rather
bad too. But both these mentioned things are "genuine" to the con-
viction of their producers. One of them believes in life through
literature; the other believes in the white incandescence of the lumi-
nous spore-like germ, or some such thing. Tell me, will you, how
many of your lesser contributors have that much genuine quality?

An artist's prime occupation is with life. Art is his outlet. One
does not become an artist by going into the arts. One has some per-
ception, some interpretation, some essential record that one must
leave. What has Djuna Barnes, or Bodenheim, or Malcolm Cowley,
or Witter Bynner, Ben Hecht, Mark Turbyfill, and a few others
to leave? Omit their names from their work, — all that any of them
has ever done, compiled in a book, — and who would recognize it
as theirs? They produce neither conscious, accidental, nor perverse
art. Cowley, and the poor overdone family cat, slur at re-
spectability, the tenacles of houses; — if these things meant something
to him more than a mannerism, aped from some artist who has made

70 The Little Review

them a part of a whole, their over-usage by "moderns" would not
matter. It is deemed essential to be subtly satirical over respecta-
bility, over repressed sexuality, over many things called "modern."
Sterne, Rabelais— innumerable ancients did it better than the pseudos^

A piece of writing should be criticised upon its own basis, but
few of the mentioned people give their writing any basis of its own.
They swim under a sea of influences — Rodker, doing the Rimbaud
thing fifty years too late, and he many years too old to put "belief"
into it. Men such as Pound, with crisp minds worshipping at the
shrine of LaForgue and Rimbaud, who were simply precocious ex-
amples of the "malaise de la jeunesse" and interesting or ingrati-
ating for that reason rather than for art. Art deals with life. Form
is something to worry about for the artist, but not the other fellow's
form. Joyce is not "modern" in form, but "Joyce." Followers on are
procreating mechanics. The impact of experience, environment, real-
ized perception — not literary-gained knowledge — and a will to say
something about it produces literature, which is valuable if the pro-
ducer finds his own form, — valuable both for perception, and for form.
What the artist needs first is the faith of his own ego, and the convic-
tion of its knowing, and feeling, so that into form he can put some
quivering protoplasm that men of comprehension can look at and
not card index.

Freud speaks of the "sexual impulse." Is there such a thing!
A voluptuous impulse, yes, which desires not contact with another
sex, but satisfaction, and which consequently seeks for it at many
destinations en route to the marriage bed which all good Christians
declare is the ultimate. And the roots of the voluptuous impulse are
a desire for a justification — an art, a religion, a love, a science — and
there is no justification but an individual's faith in his own ego, —
his vision of the universe as himself transcended and multiplied, with
his ego a thing he can be quite detached and abstract about, — a shrine
before which he can call nations, politicians, gods and undertakers,
and say "worship." But if he doesn't worship himself what boots it?

I haven't form; neither have I an aped structure. Christ knows
I'm no artist — perhaps en route. I don't know, can't care, must
write any way, nothing else I want to do and I have energy and con-
ceptions. Every now and then in some little thing I achieve "form."

The Little Review 71

Then somehow I'm satisfied, and don't care about sending it in —
both because I know it to be complete, and because I know it is a
lesser "form" that doesn't indicate much to me.

Do you know any "modern" critic, you "jh," Eliot, or anybody
else who would be capable of writing in the abstract a philosophy of
art of comprehension comparable to Taine's, or of Remy de Gour-
mont's, with "modern" understanding, — O yes indeed, but we must
insist, with equal scope, — however different the texture. Or do we
know much about even our individual philosophies of art today.
Doesn't the Little Review "chance it" frequently on, — say on some
simple being — such as the man who wrote the bloody spittle in the
bowl story, for instance? Pourquoi moi, I am agnostic. I know of
only two writers in whom I can believe — of course I make no strin-
gent effort to "keep up" — but Hardy, and Joyce, with Conrad and
Hudson, at least know what they want to do. Hardy has a convic-
tion in some kind of unity of futility in existence ; Joyce has insight
into people. Conrad I have read but slightly, and Hudson — I don't
know. I liked his "Purple Land" and "Green Mansions" — well he's
had space enough. I've nothing to say about him.

The million things I say are attempts at location. You declare
you have yours. I ask questions to ascertain your conviction. I
only know one person who has his "location" and it isn't mine. I
don't write to write, but because I hate, or adore, or don't know what
to do about life to such an extent that I can't end it, unsolved. The
whole damned process is a frame-up — you're caught going and com-
ing, and at both ends, for every realized impulse.

Hasn't the race been "civilized," such as the word has come to
mean, for enough generations, for it to be rather absurd to talk about
"primal" impulses, and want to go back to the primitive, naive, child-
mind form sort of thing? Isn't a complex man, emotionally, spiri-
tually, intellectually, quite a "natural" manifestation. There have
been so many of them from bible times on down?

72 The Little Review

The Russian Dadaists
by L, Lozowick

AMERICA has its Else von Freytag Loringhoven, France its
Tristan Tzara, anJ Russia its Alexander Krutchenich.
The Russian Dadaists — or, as they call themselves, Ego-
Futurists, Cubo-Futurists, etc., — have been writing longer than their
analogues in America and France.

And they are tremendously serious. They spin elaborate theo-
ries. They lambast the opposition. They are aggressively immodest.
"I, Igor Severianin — Genius."

Here is a "great dramatic poem" by Vasili Gniedov, written in
a language of his own creation. I translate it faithfully:

Celyatavilyutchi'mochaiodrobi

sitchakaipoolsmilyaet'gadai

osnach'novelikaiustiuzosami

odnazamotinoodnoitcheprakom

oostiyeoostipomyeshasidit

izviloizdo'mkipo-oyanyetyaleek

ivot'nasookoopolojoistookaikosma

Zavivai Zavivapronosoiyaiyainemo

Stoyispognetzalyejoot'nasay — chdoo

Ovojgdyerosloyimoreplavosiva.

They are contemptuous of language as a means to communicate
ideas. For their self expression they want to create a medium en-
dowed with color, taste, sound.

Here is a poem of Alexander Krutchenich, the most formidable
theorist of the new movement. The poem is, in his own opinion,
greater than all of Pushkin.

dir boor shtchill
oobyeshtchoor

The Little Review 73

skoom
vi so boo
rlez
Krutchenich has written a series of critical articles on the litera-
ture of Russia. It is an amazing collection. His keen analysis and
withering satire are inimitable. From Pushkin to Dostoevsky, from
Tolstoy to Sologub, all popular idols are brought before the seat of
judgment, subjected to a rigorous cross-examination, and ruthlessly
condemned to the block.

A bit of admonition from his pen:

"Cast Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., from the ship of the
Present and let them not contaminate the air!"

I wonder how many Pushkins and Tolstoys of other lands should
be made to join the Russians in the happy consummation?

jE . Ro h ert S c hmi tz

by Margaret Anderson

R. SCHMITZ' playing of the piano is probably the most
interesting to be heard in America today, — scientifically the
most interesting. This is not to disparage its extremely
musical content (one never hears Debussy, for instance, played with
more "fulness" or colour) ; but Mr. Schmitz's experiments in sound,
in a very specialized modern technique, engage one's intellectual in-
terest to a point that overshadows other aspects. Only a deep per-
sonal magic in the performer prevents this overshadowing, and this
Mr. Schmitz does not possess. Harold Bauer, who commands a
lesser range of tonal possibilities than Mr. Schmitz, holds his audience
with a surer spell. It is entirely a matter of personal capacity — of
how particularly one sees life and how consciously one can record the
particularity. I am not interested in any of the conventional criticism
of Mr. Schmitz. Why should a man who plays the music of his
own generation be classified as "modern," and the question of his
possible inefficiency in regard to the "old masters" be discussed from
one end of the foolish country to another? Such criticism is as point-
less as the praise given to a man like Richard Buhlig, — who plays
with no significance because he plays with none of the vibrations of

74 TheLittleReview

his own age. Mr. Schmitz plays Bach and Beethoven and
Chopin with as much distinction and resourcefulness as he plays Ravel
and Debussy. All a man can play is — himself.

Mr. Schmitz will give another recital in Aeolian Hall on De-
cember 17,

Marguerite D'Alvare^
by Margaret Anderson

IN talking of Marguerite D'Alvarez one must talk much of
personal magic. Mme. D'Alvarez is just beginning a series
of concerts in this country that will undoubtedly establish
her as one of the greatest contraltos of the age — a reputation she
already enjoys in London and other parts of the world. Of course
Americans are most skeptical, at first, of personal magic. It took
them years to acclaim Mary Garden. And, once acclaimed, their
recognition is as nauseating as their failure to recognize. They
never recognize essential quality. I really much prefer to hear them
saying that Mary Garden "can't sing," that she is a conceited freak,
a blatant showman, than to hear them saying that she is a wonderful
actress who gives them the sensation of "shooting up and down in an
elevator."

Mme. D'Alvarez is a great artist. She not only has one of the
most magnificent voices in the world ; she has an intellect which is
preoccupied with discovering and creating new beauty rather than,
like most singers, satisfied with reproducing that already stated. The
artist in a man very often finds the man a discordant environment,
and expression is thereby tainted and limited. But the artist in Mme.
D'Alvarez finds in the woman a rich, established, cultural environ-
ment, both of race and of personal civilization. This combination
doesn't produce a democratic art; it produces a splendour and lavish-
ness which at the same time remain imperial and formal.

Her first recital of the season will be given in Aeolian Hall on
November 30. There will be a second one in January, and others
still unannounced.

DRAWING. BY CHARLES DE MUTH.

Study

by Arthur JVinthrop

TAKING his usual morning walk after a hearty breakfast,
Anthony Brewer knew himself a fortunate man. He
walked idly, leisurely soaking up the sunlight, the crisp
wind, the bitter smell of privet; his eye delighted with
their sombre greens and bright patches of viridian.
The outlines of the houses reminded him of the village where
his boyhood was spent; the low eaves jostled staid Georgian exteriors.
One house was called "The Antlers" ; it had a skull and antlers
over the lintel.

The broad opulent privet hedges pleased him most. It was on
one of these he saw the piece of string which was to be his ruin. It
was plaited, and for some minutes intimation of terror made him
contemplate it. This in itself he felt was remarkable since he was
of strong will and decided action. Then concluding that to be so
undecided was more than childish he picked it up.

It was at this moment that there woke in him an impersonal
feeling of inimical forces. From very far down in his memory the
association "plaited string" said "Be careful." He remembered then
quite simply and without effort that in certain places it was custo-
mary to untie every knot in the house in order to facilitate child-
birth.

He felt that he was on the tack but had not quite got what he
wanted. Then he remembered that string was often plaited as a
charm : an incantation was made over it and the string thrown away.
The curse would then alight on whoever untied the knot. He was
faintly amused. It was a sparkling autumn morning. He had only to be
aware of the exhilaration of blood racing in his body to feel how
absurd was all superstition. Automatically and with only a faint
reluctance he pulled out the string. Immediately it stuck fast. He
tried the other end with the same result. Again it unravelled for a

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 77

moment and stuck fast. He carefully undid the knot, saying to him-
self, "throw it away, you've still time," but all the time his fingers
were working away at it. Suddenly the string was unravelled and
hung from his finger. He said to himself, "You've done it now,"
and felt oppressed. .

The morning had lost its headiness and he walked back quietly.
He thought of childbed — that was impossible. A hideous and ob-
scene thought flashed then through his brain — some victim of in-
somnia. Some unfortunate who lived in anguished anticipation of a
night which would bring no relief. That night which though all the
world found repose must be for him a continual grinding of his
brain about his life's follies, asburdities, crimes. Was this the curse
then that Brewer had brought upon himself? — of all curses the most
terrible. Those occasional nights when he could not sleep had been
more full of terror for him than anything in his life. How he had
tossed from side to side, hugged his pillow in agony, with what
tears and good resolutions waited for the dawn. And now when-
ever he feared he might not sleep it took him hours to drop off.
Already he saw a sleepless night. The morning seemed suddenly cold.
He hurried home.

His wife, all atremble, met him on the doorstep. A strange cat
had got into the cellar. It had stared at her with fierce yellow eyes.
Now it would not move. The inspector had called to see the meter
and the cat had leapt at him. The inspector had been cross and
scolded her for not telling him. Perhaps it had rabies. She had
heard of such things.

Brewer began to feel he was seeing prodigies — lions in the street,
headless ghosts, blood dripping from the sky. He was sure now that
he had released some principle of evil.

His brother-in-law came to dinner and smoked all the cigarettes
and seized the best arm chair. This always happened, but tonight it
appeared to have a malign intention.

Feeling she must get the matter over, his wife, as they undressed,
confessed that the strange cat had so upset the maid that his Spode
tureen was smashed beyond hope of rivetting. This convinced
him that he had adopted another's curse.

From this day he went into a decline. He became superstitious.

78 T h e L i t tl e Re V i ew

He carefully avoided the joints of paving stones, always went once
round every lamppost, and before putting down any object ran his
finger round the circumference seven times.

Every annoyance was put down to that unfortunate morning. Fi-
nally two bills could not arrive by the same post without upsetting
him beyond all measure.

His back bent, his fingers grew corpse cold, and long pale hairs
grew on the joints, the hair of his head fell out. Life was too
much for him.

Garden Abstract

by Hart Crane

THE apple on its bough is her desire —
Shining suspension, mimic of the sun.
The bough has caught her breath up, and her voice.
Dumbly articulate in the slant and rise
Of branch on branch above her, blurs her eyes.
She is prisoner of the tree and its green fingers.

And so she comes to dream herself the tree.

The wind possessing her — weaving her young veins,

Holding her to the sky and its quick blue.

Drowning the fever of her hands in sunlight.

She has no memory, nor fear, nor hope

Beyond the grass and shadows at her feet,

Bergamasque

by Carlo Linati

To Ezra Pound

Voire dine est un paysage choisi '

Que vout charrnants masques et bergamasques . . .
I ; — Paul Verlaine.

HOW tenderly, that April morning, we looked at the little
maid who knelt in the sun, planting a small primrose
garden, that she sprinkled with water of the Brembo!
The sunlight was so clear among the poplar trees
whose buds spread heavy wine smell. A big washer-
woman was bustling about. The rustic limbs delineated themselves
upon the green so majestically that you whispered: "The spirit of
Titian is wandering in the air."

Venetian suavity and lombradic vigour. Bergamasque ! The
carpaccesco portico of the farmhouse, harlequinesque women, the
broken line of the hills and the golden light scattered upon the
landscape, dreaming in the dawn and so silent.

But you, fantastic creature, sought the bank-side. You would
be pleased to discover a bank to this beautiful river upon whicli
you could run in some airy dance, in sight of the turbulent stream,
like a child to kiss from time to time!
We reached, at last, the canal.

You sat upon the parapet; I, undressed, threw myself into the
torrent.

Plunged in the heart of the waters that leapt down from the
mills and factories of the mountain above, I felt the energy of my
country becoming spirit and flesh in my heart. Supine, I sang an
old lombard song, stirring up the rocky echoes: then swam along the
bank with a fellow snake, like some primordial triton.

80 T h e Little Review

I got up and came toward you (you so frightened!) and we
took our lunch together, the swallows flying over us.

The evening took us by surprise in Bergamo Alta. Along the
lanes the tinkers were finishing the friezes upon their pails, and the
old women folded up in their shawls, hurried to the red-lit altars.
What a good charcuterie smell walked about for all the Borgo!
Antique-dealers sat down drowsily on the threshold of the shops: stout
men with galgaresque faces sat by the inn windows playing at cards,
brawling, drinking, with oaths.

How agreeable to stroll about among the lanes behind the
Duomo. Quiet luminous orchards, carved portals, mocking masques
upon the arches of the windows. But, arriving at the walls of Santa
Grata, how beautiful the lombard plain, its rich immensity, and,
below, the flaring scintillation of the river, delicate scimitar lying
across the land.

Ulysses

by yames yoyce

Episode XIV

DESHIL Holies Eamus, Deshil Holies Eamus, Deshil
Holies Eamus. Send us, bright one, light one, Hor-
horn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us, bright one
light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send
us bright one light one, Horhorn, quickening and
wombfruit.

Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa,
boyaboy, hoopsa!

Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little percep-
tive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably
by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of
that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of
that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly
maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances
being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation
more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward
may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent
continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortu-
nately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipoUent nature's in-
corrupted benediction. For who is there who anything of some sig-
nificance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour
may be the surface of a downward tending lutulent reality or on the
contrary anyone so is there inilluminated as not to perceive that as no
nature's boon can contend against the county of increase so it behooves
every most just citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of
his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the
nation excellently commenced might be in the future not with similar
excellence accomplished if an invercund habit shall have gradually
traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted cu§toms to that

82 T he Little Review

thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who
would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence
can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel
simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with pro-
phecy of abundance or with diminution's menace that exalted of reit-
eratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians
relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature admir-
able admired the art of medicine shall have been highly honored. Not
to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, their
greatest doctors, the O'Shiels, the O'Hickeys, the O'Lees, have sedu-
lously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the relapsed
found again health whether the malady had been the trembling with-
ering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work which
in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with import-
ance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted
(whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience
it is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent
inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest)
whereby maternity was so far from accident possibility removed that
whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly
required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who
not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely
could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was pro-
vided.

To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able
to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent
mothers prosperity at all not to can be, and as they had received
eternity gods mortals generation to bent them her beholding, when the
case was so having itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying
desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be
received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in
being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised
that they her by ancipation went seeing mother, that she by them
suddenly to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt!

Before born babe bliss had. Within womb won he worship.
Whatever in that one case done comrnodiously done was. A couch

The Little Review 83

by midwives attended with wholesome food reposeful cleanest
swaddles as though forthbringing were now done and by wise fore-
sight set: but to this no less of what drugs there is need and surgical
implements which are pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of
all very distracting spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial
orb offered together with images, divine and human, the cogitation
of which by sejunct females is to tumescence conducive or eases issue
in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, osten-
sibly far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in,
her term up.

Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night's
oncoming. Of Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering
far had fared. Stark ruth of man his errand that him lone led till
that house.

Of that house A. Home is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there
teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth
bairns hale so God's angel to Mary quoth. Watchers they there walk,
white sisters in ward sleepless. Smarts they still sickness soothing:
in twelve moon thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are,
for Home holding wariest ward.

In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mild-hearted
eft rising with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo,
levin leaping lightens in eyebling Ireland's westward welkin! Full
she dread that God the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water
for his evil sins. Christ's rood made she on breastbone and him
drew that he would rather infare under her thatch. That man her
will wotting worthful went in Home's house.

Loth to irk in Home's hall hat holding the seeker stood. On
her stow he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter
that then over land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered.
Once her in townhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her
to forgive now he craved with good ground of her allowed that that
of him swiftseen face, hers, so young then had looked. Light swift
her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning.

As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrov?'' she
feared. Glad after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if
O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful

84 T he Little Review

sigh him answered that O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the
man that word to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she
there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling
God's rightwiseness to withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet
death through God His goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy
housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. The man then right earnest asked
the nun of which death the dead man was died and the nun answered
him and said that he was died in Mona island through bellycrab three
year agone come Yule and she prayed to God the AUruthful to have
his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held
hat sad staring. So stood they there both av/hile in wanhope, sorrow-
ing one with other.

Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and
the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he
came naked forth of his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at
the last for to go as he came.

The man that was come into the house then spoke to the nursing-
woman and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay
there in childbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that
that woman was in throes now full three days and that it would be
a hard birth unneth to bear but that now in a little it would be. She
said that she had seen many births of women but never was
none so hard as was that woman's birth. Then she set it forth all
to him that time was had lived high that house. The man heark-
ened to her words for he felt with wonder women's woe in the
travail that they have of motherhood and he wondered to look on
her face that was a young face for any man to see but yet was she
left after long years a handmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding
her childless.

And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and
there nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat.
And there came against the place as they stood a young learning
knight yclept Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him
sithen it had happed that they had ado each with other in the house
of misericord where this learning knight lay by cause the traveller
Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his
breast by a spear wherewith a horrible, and dre.adful dragon wa§

The Little Review 85

smitten him for which he did to make a salve of volatile salt and
chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should
go mto that castle for to make merry with them that were there. And
the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he was
a man of cautels and a subtle. Also the lady was of his avis and
repreved the learning knight though she trowed well that the
traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But the
learning knight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement he
have him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a
marvelous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle
for to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches
environing in divers lands and sometime venery.

And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of
Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but
they durst not move more for enchantment. And on this board were
frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by
swinking demons out of white flames that they fix in the horns of
buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there were
vessels that are wrought by magic out of seasand and the air by a
warlock with his breath that he blares into them like to bubbles.
And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could
devise a fuller ne richer. And there was a vat of silver that was
moved by craft to open in the which lay strange fishes withouten
heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible thing with-
out they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie in an oily
water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness that
therein is like to the juices of the olive press. And also it was a
marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost
out of fecund wheat kidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain
angy spirits that they do into it swells up wondrously like to a vast
mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves
up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents
they brew out a brewage like to mead.

And the learning knight let pour for the traveller a draught
and halp thereto the while all they that were there drank every each.
And the traveller Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and
took apertly somewhat in amity for he never drank no manner of

86 The Little Review

mead and anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour
glass and his neighbour nist not of his wile. And he sat down m
that castle with them for to rest him there awhile Thanked be
Almighty God.

This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged
them at the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their
wassailing for there was above one quick with child a gentle dame,
whose time hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high
and he wondered what cry that it was whether of child or woman
and I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth
overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that bight Lenehan
an that side the table that was older than any of the tother and for
that they both were knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by
cause that he was elder he spoke to him full gently. But, said he,
or it be long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have
joy for she hath waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had
drunken said. Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took
the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never done asking nor
desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably,
and he quaffed as far as he might to their both's health for he
was a passing good man of his lustiness. And Sir Leopold that was
the goodliest guest that ever sat in scholar's hall and that was the
meekest man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under
hen and that was the very knight of the world one that ever did
minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman's
woe with wonder pondering.

Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent
to be drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along
either side the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of Saint
Mary Merciable's with other his fellows Lynch and Madden.,
scholars of medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one
from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien
of a frere that was at head of the board and Costello that men
clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of him erewhile gested
(and of all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the most drunken
that demanded still of more mead) and beside the meek Sir Leopold.
But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised to have come

The Little Review 87

and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow.
And Sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to Sir
Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for that his langour
becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as they
feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red
him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns
each gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden
maintaining that put such case it were heard the wife to die (for so
it had fallen out a matter of some year agone with a woman of
Eblana in Home's house that now was trepassed out of this world
and the self night next before her death all leeches and pothecaries
had taken counsel of her case). And they said farther she should live
because in the beginning they said the woman should bring forth in
pain and wherefore they that were of this imagination affirmed how
young Madden had said truth for he had conscience to let her die.
And not few and of these was young Lynch were in doubt that the
world was now right evil governed as it was never other howbeit
the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his judges did
provide no remedy. This was scant said but all cried with one acclaim
the wife should live and the babe to die. And they waxed hot upon
that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the
franklin Lenehan was prompt to pour them ale so that at the least
way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the
whole affair and when he said how that she was dead and how for
holy religion sake her goodman husband would not let her death
whereby they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen
had these words following, Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk.
Both babe and parent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo
gloom, the other in purge fire. But what of those Godpossibled souls
that we nightly impossibilise ? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief.
We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has
other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello
wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best
word he could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman
whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be
delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereas Crotthers of Alba

The Little Review

Longa sang young Malachi's praise of that beast the unicorn how
once in the millennium he cometh by his horn the other all this while
pricked' forward with their jibes wherew^ith they did malice him,
witnessing all and several by Saint Cuculus his engines that he was
able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. There at
laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold
which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour
w^hich he would not betray and also for that he rued for her that bare
whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spoke young Stephen
orgulous of mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom,
of law of canons, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness
or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by
the influence of the Occident or peradventure in her bath according
to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He siid also
how at the end of the second month a human soul was infused and
how in all our holy mother foldeth ever souls for God's greater glory
whereas that earthly mother which was but a dam to bring forth
beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth the fisherman's
seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all
ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would
he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A
wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to
jaw, he said dissembling that as it was informed him and agreeing
also with his experience of so seldom seen an accident it was good
for that Mother Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence
and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions. That is truth,
said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant word: Which hearing young
Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he averred that he who
stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild man-
ner when he was drunken and that he was now in that taking it
appeared eftsoons.

But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by
cause he still had pity of the terror causing shrieking of shrill women
in their labour and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that
had borne him an only manchild which on his eleventh day on live
had died and no man of art could save so dark is destiny. And she

T h e Lit t le Review 89

was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap and for his burial
did him on a fair corselet of lamb's wool, the flower of the flock,
lest he might perish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then about
the midst of the winter) and now sir Leopold that had of his body
no manchild for an heir looked upon him his friend's son and was
shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and as sad as he was
that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all accounted him
of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure for young Stephen
for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his
goods with whores.

About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood
empty so as there remained but little if the prudenter had not shad-
owed their approach from him that still plied it very busily who,
praying for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for
a pledge the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray.
Now drink we, quod he, of this mazer and quaft ye this mead which
is not indeed parcel of my body but my soul's bodiment. Leave ye
fraction of bread to them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard
neither for any want for this will comfort more than the other will
dismay. See ye here. And he showed them glistering coins of the
tribute and goldsmiths' notes the worth of two pound nineteen shil-
lings that he had he said for a song which he writ. They all admired
to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of money as was herebefore.
His words were then these as followeth : Know all men, he said,
time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means this? Desire's
wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush
to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman's
womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that
passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the post-
creation. Ovinis caro ad te veniet. No question but her name is
puissant who aventried the dear course of our Agenbuyer, Healer and
Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus
saith aptly that she hath an omnipitentiani deiparae suppUcem, that is
to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and
she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other, our grandam,
which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords
sold us by all lock, stock and barrel for a penny pippin. But here is

90 The Little Review

the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was but
creature of her creature, vergine rnadre figlia di tuo figlio or she knew
him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy with Peter
Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with Joseph the
Joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages parceque
M. Leo Taxil nous a dit que qui I'avait rnise dans cette fichue position
c'etait le sacre pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder transsubstantiality
oder consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried
out upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said,
a birth without pangs, a body without belmish, a belly without big-
ness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will
we withstand, withsay.

Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board
and would sing a bawdy catch Staboo Stabella about a wench that
was put in pod of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did now
attack: The first three months she was not well, Staboo, when here
nurse Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame
you nor was it meet as she remembered them being her mind was to
have all orderly against lord Andrew came as she was jealous that no
turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an ancient
and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit
dun beseming her megrins and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative
want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all
embraided and they reclaimed him with civil rudeness some and with
menace of blandishments others whiles all chode with him, a murrain
seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny,
thou got in the peasestraw, thou chitterling, thou dykedropt, thou
abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse
of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower
of quietmargerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most
sacred and most worthy to be most sacred. In Home's house rest
should reign.

To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of
Mary's in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was
the reason why he had not cided to take friar's vows and he answered
him obedience in the womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary

The Little Re vie IV 91

poverty all his days. Master Lenehan at this made return that he had
heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted,
he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was
corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry
and toasting to his fathership. But he said very entirely it was clean
contrary to their suppose for he was the eternal son and ever virgin.
Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him his
curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses,
she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain,
with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung
kyries and the anthem Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysteriiim
till she was there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable
hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcher and
Master Francis Beaumont that is in their Maid's Tragedy that was
writ for a like twining of lovers: To bed, to bed, was the burden of
it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. Well
met they were, said Master Dixon, but, harkee, better were they
named Beau Mont and Lecher for, by my troth, of such a mingling
much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best remem-
brance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the
stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high
in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. Greater
love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife
for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that
efiEect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regious professor of French letters
to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom
mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower
it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. Orate, fratres,
pro memetipso. And all the people shall say. Amen. Remember,
Erin, thy generations and they days of old, how thou settedst little by
me and by my word and broughtest in a stranger to my gates to
commit fornication in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum.
Therefore hast thou sinned against the light and hast made me, thy
lord to be the slave of servants. Return, return. Clan Milly: forget
me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before
me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalap and didst deny

92 The Little Review

me to the Roman and the Indian of dark speech with whom thy
daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon
the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and from
Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk
and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon
and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me
alone for ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of
ashes hast thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior,
he proceeded to say hath not been illumined by the wit of the septua-
gint nor as much as mentioned for the Orient from on high. Which
brake hell's gates visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefac-
tion minorates atrocities and Hamlet his father showeth the prince
no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the moon of life is an
Egypt's plague which in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity
is their most proper ubi and quomodo. And as the ends and ultimates
of all things accords in some mean and measure with their inceptions
and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth
growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis
that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto
nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into
life: we wail, batten, sport, slip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us
dead they bend. First saved from water of old Nile, among bulrushes,
a bed of fasciated wattles; at last the cavity of a mountain, an
occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossi-
frage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what
processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to
Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see
from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath
fetched his whenceness.

{to be continued)

The Reader Critic

Overheard at an Amy Lowell Lecture

"Amy Lowell has the drummer method of letting you in on poetry,
hasn't she? I haven't ever written any, but now I've heard her I think I
shall. ... If she didn't have so much ease, there would still be ease
enough, wouldn't there?"

Loyalty
A Champion

Of course you see the Dial? Why in the name of literature do they
start a magazine at this date and follow directly in your footsteps? Can't
they do any pioneering of their own ? I have followed your progress for
the past five years and I am very loyal to your little journal. This loyalty
may prejudice me to the extent of considering the Dial's policy a literary
breach.

[Yes, we have had this called to our attention many times. The Dial's
contents page often reads like our letter-head; but we don't mind, and they
seem to like it. There is room in America for any number of efforts of this
kind. And it is especially fitting, now that we have prohibition, to have a
de-alcoholized version of the Little Revieiv. — ;7/.]

The World Moves
{from the London 'Times)

In some such fashion as this do we seek to define the element which
distinguishes the work of several young writers, among whom Mr. James
Joyce is the most notable, from that of their predecessors. It attempts to
come closer to life, and to preserve more sincerely and exactly what in-
terests and moves them by discarding most of the conventions which are
commonly observed by the novelists. Let us record the atoms as they fall
upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, how-
ever disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident
scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life
exists more in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly

94 The Little Review

thought small. Any one who has read "The Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man" or what promises to be a far more interesting work, "Ulysses,"
now appearaing in the Little Review, will have hazarded some theory of
this nature as to Mr. Joyce's intention. On our part it is hazarded rather
than affirmed; but whatever the exact intention there can be no question
but that it is of the utmost sincerity and that the result, difficult or unpleasant
as we may judge it, is undeniably distinct. In contrast to those whom we
have called materialists Mr. Joyce is spiritual; concerned at all costs to
reveal the flickerings of that inermost flame which flashes its myriad mes-
sages through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever
seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other
of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imagina-
tions free. Faced, as in the Cemetery scene, by so much that, in its restless
scintillations, in its irrelevance, its flashes of deep significance succeeded by
incoherent inanities, seems to be life itself, we have to fumble rather
awkwardly if we want to say what else we wish; and for what reason a
work of such originality yet fails to compare, for we must take high
examples, with "Youth" or "Jude the O'bscure." It fails, one might say
simply, because of the comparative poverty of the writer's mind. But it is
possible to press a little further and wonder whether we may not refer
our sense of being in a bright and yet somehow strictly confined apartment
rather than at large beneath the sky to some limitation imposed by the
method as well as by the mind. Is it due to the method that we feel neither
jovial nor magnanimous, but centred in a self which in spite of its tremor
of susceptibility never reaches out or embraces or comprehends what Is
outside and beyond? Does the' emphasis laid perhaps didactically upon
indecency contribute to this efi^ect of the angular and isloated? Or is it
merely that in any effort of such courage the faults as well as the virtues
are left naked to the view? In any case we need not attribute too much
importance to the method. Any method is right, every method is right,
that expresses what we wish to express. This one has the merit of giving
closer shape to what we were prepared to call life itself; did not the reading
of "Ulysses" suggest how much of life is excluded and ignored, and did
it not come with a shock to open "Tristram Shandy" and even "Pen-
dennis," and be by them convinced that there are other aspects of life,
and larger ones into the bargain?

*'One of the Really Notable Contributions to the English Liter-
ature of the last three centuries". Theodore Dreiser

CAIUS GRACCHUS

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UTTLE HEYIEW

VOL- VII.

JANUARY^MAKCH

No. 4

CONTENTS

Ashe of Rings, I.

Corps et Biens

The Man in the Brown Coat

Indisposition

"Ulysses" in Court

Poems

Katrina Silverstaff

Discussion :

Sumner versus James Joyce

Lawrence Atkinson

Reproductions

Apropos Art and its Trials

Mr. Rodker and Modern French Poetry

To Mina Loy

The Wind-Flowers of Asklepiades

''Sculpshure"
Hamlet-of-the-Wedding-Ring Else von

Dada Manifesto
K The Reader Critic

Mary Butts

Louis A r agon

Sherwood Anderson

Mark Turbyfill

Margaret Anderson

Philippe Soupault

Djuna Barnes

Harriet Monroe

Horace Shipp

Lawrence Atkinson

Emmy Sanders

Muriel Ciolkowska

John Rodker

Mary Butts

Abel Sanders

Freytag-Loringhoven

MARY BUTTS

THE
UTTLE REYIEW

Ashe of Rings

by Mary Butts

Part I
Chapter I

RINGS lay in a cup of turf. A thin spring sun painted its
stones white. Two rollers of chalk down hung over it;
midway between their crest and the sea the house crouched
like a dragon on a saucer of jade.

In the walled garden behind the house the air was
filtered from the sea wind and made a mixing bowl for scents, for
bees, coloured insects, and noisy birds. An old gardener picking
gooseberries straightened his back to spit. The great drive up which
the countryside crawled like weakening flies swerved to the right
where a stream ran into the sea. There the cliffs parted and the
hurrying sea beat into a round cove full of rocks. The waves rang
within earshot of the lodge. In storms they covered it with spray.
There Rings ended and the world began.

The station fly ground round the corner by the shore. Anthony
Ashe poked his head out of the window and smelt his strip of beach.
Half way up the avenue he stopped the cab and got out.

"That will do, Mouseman, thank you. Good afternoon."

He passed under the trees whose long buds broke the light and

The Little Review

took a footpath across the park. He walked quickly.

The house has a thousand eyesf He turned his head to the sea
under their scrutiny till a straggled wood of black pine hid him
and the path turned red.

Anthony Ashe of Rings remembered that he should have insured
the driver's silence — the words had not shaped. But there were no
words, and tongue slithing out of fashion. A great lord of the world
would admit that. The house would know already — a small child
running up the drive with the news. It did not matter.

"It is said of this place that in the time of Arthur, the legendary
king of Britain, Morgan le Fay, an enchantress of that period had
dealings of an inconceivable nature there. Also that it was used
by druid priests, and even before then as a place for holy and magical
rites and ceremonies. A battle of the Danes and Saxons was fought
there. Today the country-people will not approach it at night, not
the hardiest shepherd. There is a tradition that in the barrow above
the earthworks is placed a box of bright gold."

The first Ring raised its thirty feet of turf. A ribbon of chalk
path ran along its crest, a loop a mile round. Inside was a second wall
and within that a third. On the plateau above them was a round
barrow, irrelevantly placed, and a dewpond full of mud. Behind
the pond and barrow there was a grove, ragged trees exceedingly tall,
pines and beeches, knit at the feet with hazel and bramble and fern.
On its skirt a pleasant wood, its centre a saggy tricket full of white
marsh grass. Year in, year out, the wind rang in its crest with the
noise of a harp.

From these rings and this grove depended the fantastic house,
and the generations called Ashe which were born there and pattered
through its hall and bright passages like leaves. The triple circle
was the sole device on their shield, represented from the hatchment
of their dead to the coral and bells each baby shook and chewed.
An old drawing represented the Rings come down from their hill and
sitting like an extinguisher upon the house. It had been calculated

The Little Review

that allowing for all projections the house would fit exactly into the
roots of the wood.

"A British camp, but of pre-British — possibly neolithic — origin,
used by the Romans, a refuge for Celt and then for the Saxon, a
place of legend and consequent aversion to the countryside ever since,
it is well that so interesting an historic site should have remained
in the preservation of so ancient a family."

Anthony Ashe stamped his arms on the presentation copy of these
sentiment and knew better. The Rings preserved //////. His son
Julian had died, and that night he had gone up to them a blind beast.
After these years in the East, in Russia, he had come back, without
mate, without heir, to present his accounts and their deficit.

He went through the gap in the first rampart, crossed the fosse,
and mounted the white chalk steps over the second ring, and the
third. The wind ran along them shivering, and a thistle tapped his
boot. He climbed the barrow, sat on it, and looked back down the
valley to his house.

The Rings kept the wide valley head. From them a road, green
white and faint ran into a birchwood, and through the delicate trees
to a door in the kitchen garden wall. Thus no one but shepherds
came to the Rings except through Rings. At the valley head the
road was lost in a powdering of flints.

Thick white smoke rose from two chimneys below. The fire
was lit in the library and in his dressing-room. The news had come.
He dragged at his short beard with his knees till his chin ached.
There must be children. And for that some strong girl. His name
would obtain one. What was left of his life could be given to
her training. A lively sacrifice to this place. It did not matter
whom, rd be daft to refuse him, the laird o Cockpeiu An old tune.
That's it. Soon to find. Easy to keep. But a stale business. There
was revenge. What had been a duty would remain one. The carved
bed frightened them? Chinese. The Imperial Court. A girl slung
across the back of the chief Eunuch. Left to crawl up from the
foot of the dragon-bed. Would Clavel like the job? . . . All the
solemn county to placate. Cruets.

Oh God! let me see it through. Rings, it's been a labour fol-

The Little Review

lowing through the centuries your eternal caprice. It comes again.
I don't doubt that it will come again. ... I do not know what
it is. . . . To every Ashe in turn it happens. . . . You . . .
sinff, and singing in your glory move. . . . 'Julian — my son
Julian?'

A specialist's undertaking. The things that one foregoes. The
feather in Rings cap. You could cover a broader skull. My old
head aches with you.

He wrote with his stick upon a patch of chalk. Anthony Ashe
— 1892 — Iste perfecit opus.

**I must go down and see about that child." He stood up reset-
ting his gray top hat. A breath fluttered through the tree tops and
ran through the grey hair fringes on the back of his skull. He shook
his head.

"Caprice — Caprice — stop tickling my neck. I tell you one
thing. Not one of the bitches who want it shall have it. Their
virginities can wither on them. Once I'm dead they can go for her.
I'm an old man. The strain needs crossing. That's it. Dance
round. Tickle my chin. So Julian wasn't your fancy. ... If
I stopped calling you pretty women Lesbian dryads — I couldn't stand
it. Is that why he died. Did he see in you what I dare not see?
So that he died. . . . Good night, sweet prince. You were a
young dog to turn up your nose at the pretty ladies of Rings H.U.

"I suppose I had better go in?" He ran down the side of the
barrow and walked into the wood. A light shell of turf, and spring-
ing needles. Then mud curled over the toes of his boots. A spring-
ing bramble reversed its hooks across his nose. The blood dripped
quickly through the thin skin. He controlled his fury. Another
curled across his waistcoat. He loosed each hook in turn. High up
the wind sang with seraphic lightness, a transparent feather flat-
tened into the crown of the gray top hat. With lovely lightness the
wind fell, the last sigh ran down the shafts and scattered in minute
touches. . . . He thrust on slowly into the clearing where there
was a large stone.

Light women. Light women.- Rings whores. On this rock I
have built my church. He stood five minutes with greedy eyes. Then

The Little Review

he struck through and hurried from the wood, over the rampart and
down the rabbit-darting hill.

Chapter II

The library had thirty-two lancet windows to enclose a quarter-
ing of Ashe. At the east end in the wall's angle seven stairs led
up to a round room, the floor of a tower called Rings Root. Anthony
Ashe ran up. He peered at the dim carved panels like a man inside
a barrel. The sun lay in ochre strips on the floor's deep brown glass.
Across each window the sea sparkled, but no breeze followed througli
the great depth of stone. A fire of fir-cones charred to a chalk-red
ash. A chair was placed at the third window, its arms finished with
dolphin's heads. He stretched and straddled in his quintessence of
privacy, a handsome daimon inside a Chinese ball. The room was
in the heart of Rings. There Ursula Ashe had declared herself a
witch. Then there appeared at uncertain times a sphere of pure
light. On the wall hung a lead hourglass filled with scarlet sand.
He reversed it and sat down at the open cabinet. He drew a trail of
little beasts, cats, cows, occasionally birds, but the head of each was
that of a maiden of the place.

"The Landlady's girl at the Crow. God of Rings, we might d-j
worse. She'd fill the gilt cradle, and the oak cradle, and the ivory
box that held the Italian brat." He looked up at the red trickle.

"Do it by the alphabet. A for Anne — Anne Avebury. Apple
cheeks. She's a sweet maid. I like her too well. Let her keep her
innocence. B. D. Damnation. Deisdie — Doris Benison of Phares.
No.

"H — there's Hilaria Lynde — napie's the best part of her. L
J — Jocelyn — bad little bitch that. K. L. N. M. Marion Mangester.
God forbid — Muriel Butler. What made me think? They live at
Gulltown. Blind father, black satin mother. Sprigged muslin girls
— two. What's a name. She's neutral. She'd do. Body like a
tree — head like a daffodil — the name — obscene word — Mavis, May,
Millicent. Oh, Christ. Melitta, that's. better. Melitta Ashe." The
sands ran out.

"A frill of saffron muslin, goffered small. Nancy would do it.

The Little Review

You ask her, Ver?"

"Did he pay you much attention?"

"They say he's engaged to Norah Clancy, but it's a secret — "

"Then don't mention it."

"Poor young man. I pity him if it's true."

"He is old enough to know his own mind. I believe it's a case.
Haven't you finished. Mother wants us to go shopping — "

"If I meet the Morton boy I shall ask him."

'Muriel, that would be abominably inquisitive."

"Ver, Ver, what else is there to do? What else is there to do?"

"Look here, young lady, do you want to become Mrs. Ashe or
don't you."

"You know — Anthony, you know — "

"Then you will not be called Muriel. When you understand
things rather more, you will know why. You shall be called Melitta,
see?"

"Very well. Then I shall call you Tony. Droit du seigneur."

"As you like, puss. Now you had better find out what Melitta
means?"

* * *

Gulltown hung on a cliff — white house hung with flowers on
a white cliff. A breeding place for fishermen and shepherds form
the downs, there was also a snail's nest of little gentry hanging on one
another. An incredible honour had fallen on Muriel, elder of the
sisters. The greatest of the country lords had ridden to her house,
and in nine words to her father had bespoken her.

"Tell her that I will come for her answer to-morrow. Give
her these roses. Tell her I will wait a week longer if she wishes."

She had not seen the scarlet sands run out, nor a piece of paper
covered with sketches that half burnt had lit his cigar. M — stood
for mandril and B — for bitch.

A ripe virgin, she wept into her Tennyson and combed her
rich hair.

"Ver, how can I? Ver, what shall I do?"

"Ask yourself Muriel. You like him, you esteem him. Do

The Little Review

you love him?"

"I cannot believe it's true,"

"Marriage is holy. Don't forget. It cannot be undone."

"Mistress of Rings."

"The wife of Mr. Ashe. Who could have believed that when
poor Julian dragged him over for tennis it would ever come to this?
He was very kind to me."

"So he was to us all." A look. What of it? I have done this.

"How shall I manage that marvellous house."

"You mean to accept him?"

"Accept him. Oh yes, yes, yes. Refuse Rings?"

"My dear Muriel — remember — you are not marrying his estate,
you are marrying Mr. Ashe."

"Who marries Ashe marries Rings. You silly woman. Don't
you know that?"

Her eyes crawled over her sister, scissor-point to scare the vir-
gin, mark her plain as the adulteress. Vera looked steadily over her
sister's -shoulder.

"Have you thought. There may be babies — that would make
UF> — "

"Children — I hope not — I mean — I don't quite know. It's a
nasty subject. Oh I wish Mr. Ashe had never called."

"Darling sister, forgive me. Tell me. Was there ever any feeling
between you and poor Julian?"

Wire between brain and brain. Thought running like a mouse.

"Never. Never. Never. Who has been saying so abominable
a thing? — It is is a lie — I am marrying his father. That will show
them—"

"Dear, you mustn't. And as to your marrying Mr. Ashe be-
cause you imagine that people — "

"What do you mean by it then?"

"I only thought."

Wind bitten flowers nodding behind the daffodil's head. But
she was going to marry the father. Her sewing fell ofi her lap.
She kicked it. Never sew again.

"I don't mean to be cross. People are cruel. But I know

10 The Little Review

you'll believe me,"

"We'll never speak of it again."

"We won't because there is nothing to speak of. Can't I rely
on my own sister to believe that?"

Chapter III

In the well of the library, her eyes satiated with the coat armour
she could not read, Melitta Ashe summoned her courage. It did
not come as an elemental to the word of power, as angel, socratic
daimon, a noble beast. She urged, she whimpered. Her bully com-
mands and resentful sensual girl. Una mounted her lion. Anthony
Ashe came down the seven stairs.

"I would not strike a woman with a flower, but what am I
to do to you if you poke your brassy head into my room?"
"How am I to know if the servants do their work?"
"There is no need. They know their work. Part of. which
is to tidy the room and leave me alone."

"Where is the crystal ball you promised to show me?"
"Ursula's. I have it. Do you want to understand jewels?"
"I thought that one saw pictures — and the future — and things."
"Go to any Bond Street hag for that."
"Tell me about your great-great-grandmother." —
"Ursula Ashe?" He led her to a seat and placed a footstool.
A snake was carved on it, and reared in loops about a bee-skep.
Her feet shifted in their lace stockings.

"\ou spoke of Ursula — she was earlier. It was she who brought
into prominence the practice of magic to which our family has always
been liable."

To Melitta the slow pencils the sun laid across the floor moved
on.

"She travelled to Italy. She lived here as a girl. She came
back, you can imagine the contacts. Up there a keep her book.
Every Ashe in his turn lives to read it. None of us have done so
entirely. I no more than the rest. I sometimes dream about it.
If you live here long, you will dream."

The Little Review 11

"Is it in cipher?"

"In part."

"Does it make nonsense?"

"No. Part is in reference to an occult book, the Enchiridion
of a Pope. To us conventional hocus pocus. Then a diary full of
morbid aond profound psychology^ Then a section in cipher which,
so far, no one has read."

"What was she like?"

"Her son destroyed her portrait. He was on Cromwell's side.
He saw chalked on his bedroom door a curse because of the whore-
doms of thy mother Jezabel arid her witchcrafts. He cut off his
hair, turned the gilt chapel her Italians had built her to celebrate the
black mass into a still room, and celebrated the beheading of Charles
instead. Plus ca change."

"Oh how dreadful."

"But romantic, girl, romantic. I should have thought romantic
enough even for you."

"But to behead King Charles, it was a crime. He iiothituj
common did or mean. I've loved that verse. And you speak as
though it were any common execution."

"My dear silly girl."

Over the house through the sparkling air dropped a bronze
note as a man might fall bound, upright down a well. Within the
house followed a burr, a tinkle, a humming, breaking with cross
beats into the same cadence.

She sat still.

"Can you feel," said Anthony Ashe, "now time is made sound
and we listen to it, and are outside it. Have you thought what it
is to be outside time. Turn again, little Melitta."

He took her on his knee.

"Melitta, Paphian,

Immortal Courtesan,

Virgin Mother — I'm sorry, but there are times when every
Ashe is obliged to make a verse."

But it sounds — it sounds."

"Like the Ephesian Artemis. She of the Hundred Breasts."

12 T he Lit tie Review

"But Anthony, it is coarse, and disrespectful to me as your wife."

His fine hand smoothed away his sneer.

"Try to understand." Silence. "Do you not understand the
link between yourself and a great love goddess — the type of all things
which a woman is or may become?"

She wriggled and sprang down from his knee.

"I've been trying to tell you all the morning. And you make it
harder with every dreadful thing you say. I am going to have a
child. I know I am going to have a child.

"And there is something vile about this house. I don't know
what the things are in it. 1 feel its memories watching me.

"It is much too beautiful. Only wicked people would have cared
about them so much.

"I don't know how you can sit there. Don't you care for what
IS going to happen to me?"

"What, my dear little fool, do you suppose I married you for?"

She ran out wailing.

"Take it quietly, it's all in nature. My God, does she want
every servant in the place to know her condition?"

She was gone and into the room rolled the sun. A crowned globe,
a poppy head burst, scattered, it enriched the gilt and the glass and
the waxed floor the colour of old beer. Out side the birds struck
up and the bees thundered. The letters on the books sparked, his
cigarette lit at a puff. He was comforted. If he had laughed her.
out it was to give the room its turn. Why didn't she meet its
challenge? It could be hers. He remembered. What? had he not
got him a mate? Rings saw nothing but the soul. This pink and
white shepherdess not three months married raised her moralities. . . .

There had been the station cabman on the drive. Situations
which cannot be met. Dealings with one's inferiors. "Lord I thank
thee that I am not — "

And to his estate aloud — "O thou delight of the world, may
my child be equally delightful to thee." He surrendered himself.
The long glittering room blessed him. He climbed that dais which
enclosed the north side and half the west wall and went out to look
for Melitta.

T he Little Review 13

On the valley path she struggled with the sun. The sphere
which had broken — bubbled in the house — shot out and beat her
with golden rods. The turf closed round empty shells. The path
was sharp with flints, the heat like an army with banners. Get up.
High, ever so high. Up there over the earth-works there will be
a cradle, long grass and clean and light.. Only sun and butterflies,
and over the rampart a peep into a world like tea-things set out on
a lawn, all the way over to GuUtown she was a great lady now.
She despised Gulltown. She was ashamed to remember
Gulltown. Her obscure innitiation was concluded. By a process
equally misunderstood she was to produce a child. A long way to
the top of the hill. Of course. That was why the place was called
Rings. Mrs. Ashe of Rings. They belonged to her. One might put
a summerhouse there, and have the stones picked out of the path.

People were coming to lunch. Just time to let the wind blow
through her hair. Wear a string of yellow topaz. Not round her
neck. Slung across. On a white gown. Pretend to be ill. No
good. She would make excuses and cry. He would never do any-
thing he did not want to. Horrid, horrid insolent old man. How
did he have his merry son? Wicked thought. We're married. We're
married. Till death do us part. It will part us. Not for years and
years. It was a long way to the breeze. Anthony Ashe found her
quiet on the grass.

"The sun was making a burning glass of your hair."

"Was it."

"Aren't you coming back to lunch?"

"I suppose so."

"Who would like to go to the South of France this winter?"

"Monte Carlo?"

"If you insist?"

"Ought I to — when — Anthony, don't laugh at me like that."

"Don't cry at me like that then with greed in your eyes

Coming? Don's forget the topazes on your dress?"

"No."

"On white mind "

Later in the day. "What made you run up there?"

14 T he Lit tie Review

"Do you know that if it were not for that place there would
be no Rings. And no Ashe of Rings."

"I don't understand."

"That you are my wife — and your life is bound up with the
i'fc on that hill. Your child's life will be bound up with a life out-
side your own. Like the mother of Meleager."

"It sounds heathen. I don't understand."

"You must become a brave woman. You must learn. You
must be a brave woman. Before we go abroad I will take you up
there."

- "Oh Anthony — "

"Ursula Ashe would be carried up there to be delivered of her
children — "

"Because your people were as hard as bark and as wicked as
the globe. Why do you expect me — "

"That's better. That's my brave girl."

"I don't konw. They seemed so high, up and away from the
pettiness of the world."

(To be continued)

Corps et Biens

by Louis Aragon
1

Corps perdu

AQUOI passez-vous votre temps
Les jongleurs apres chaque tour essuient leurs mains dans Li
neige
Et moi la tete vide

je vais dormir au sein d'autres blancheurs ou regne avec le grand
balancement des chiens de mer
cette nacre dont les regards font mourir
A quoi bon tourner dans le monde Ecureuil du petit matin.
On ne peut pas sortir de I'horizon cercle des bras prison nouee
Encore une fois le rire atroce et la chevelure tout a coup dressee
Mes doigts mes doigts Comme il est tard
Tout sombre

La nuit n'est pourtant pas si noire
On a beau pousser le mur de la main I'air ne vient pas
J'ai soif

Personne

C'est 1 'amour

Aline

VIENS.
Viens.
Tu chantes? Ou ton regard est-il parti?
Allons.
Ce n'est pas le moment de chanter.

16 T he Little Review

Oreille

|-H Ce soir les mots viennent de loin.
-■ — ^ D'un pays de terrasses.
— Te tairas-tu?
Nos fronts sur le linge comme des soleils couchants tombent avec

le cadavre des caresses.
— Tu me tues.
Ta bouche me suit: suis-je done un charmeur de serpents? Dans

ta prunelle il n'y a rien.

Rien si ce n'est la fin de tout.
— Le son de ta voix m'enerve."

Entracte

LEVE-TOI, marche.
Voyons, il ne s'agit pas d'un voyage. Promene-toi comme une
personne a travers la chambre.
Va.
Bien. Reviens maintenant.

del de lit

LE poete chante.
"Comme il fait chaud ce soir!"
Tout-a-coup un air passe par la tete.
"Ecoute I'oiseau de ma poitrine.
— Mes paupieres sont des pierres a moulin, mon amour:

Tout meurt excepte ce grand regard que tu poses sur mon epaule

comme une aile de navire.
C'est triste a dire.
— Comment ?
— Penser donne le vertige."

The Little Review 17

Mer d' Huile

SII'^OUS ne parlons pas, c'est que nous n'avons rien a dire.
Nous sommes longs. Le feu s'cteint.
L'homme et la femme cote a cote ont perdu -la notion du temps.
Quelle heure est il?
J'ai oublie ma montre.

VII

Point fnoi't

LOURD.
II fait lourd.
Ecarte un peu le temps qui il fait, tes cheveux lourds
sur ma figure.
Bonne nuit.

vni

Sommeil de plonib

GELA dure.
II n'y aura pas de lendemain.
La main que je tiens en reve ne me me'nera nulle part,

II ou elle dort.

L'armoire a glace veille encore.

The Man in the Brown Coat

by Sherwood Aiiderson

NAPOLEON went down into a battle riding on a
horse.
Alexander went down into a battle riding on a
horse.
General Grant got off his horse and walked in a wood.
General Hindenburg stood on a hill. The moon came up
out of a clump of bushes.

I am writing a history of the things men do. I have written three
such histories, and I am but a young man. Already I have written
three hundred, four hundred thousand words.

My wife is somewhere in this house where for hours I have been
sitting and writing. She is a tall woman with black hair turning a
little grey. Listen, she is going softly up a flight of stairs. All day
she goes softly, doing the housework in our house.

I came to this town from another town in the state of Iowa. My
father was a mender of shoes. 1 worked my way through college
and became a historian. We own this house in which I sit. This is
my room in which I work. Already I have written three histories
of peoples. I have told how states were formed and battles fought.
You may see my books standing straight up on the shelves of libraries.
They stand up like sentries.

I am tall like my wife but my shoulders are stooped. Although T
v/rite boldly I am a shy man. I like being in this room alone with
the door locked. There are many books here. Nations march back
and forth in the books. It is quiet here but in the books a gre.il
thunderinji jjoes on.

The Little Review 19

Napoleon rides down a hill and into a battle.

General Grant walks in a wood.

Alexander rides down a hill and into a battle.

IVIy wife has a serious, almost stern look. In the afternoon she
leaves our house and goes for a walk. Sometimes she goes to stores,
sometimes to visit a neighbour. There is a yellow house opposite our
house. My wife goes out a side door and passes along our street
between our house and the yellow house.

The window before my desk makes a little framed place like a pic-
ture. The yellow house across the street makes a solid background
of yellow.

The side door of our house bangs. There is a moment of waiting.
My wife's face floats across the yellow background of the picture.

General Pershing rode down a hill and into a battle.
Alexander rode down a hill and into a battle.

Little things are growing big in my mind. The window before mv
desk makes a little framed place like a picture. Every day I wait
staring. I wait with an odd sensation of something impending.
My hand trembles. The face that floats through the picture does
something I don't understand. The face floats, then it stops. It
goes from the right hand side to the left hand side, then it stops.

The face comes into my mind and goes out. The face floats in my
mind. The pen falls from my fingers. The house is silent. The
eyes of the floating face are turned away from me.

My wife is a girl who came here to this town from a town in Ohio.
We employ a servant but often my wife sweeps the floors and some-
times she makes the bed in which we sleep together. We sit together
in the evening but I do not know her. I cannot shake myself out of
myself, I wear a brown coat and I cannot come out of my coat. I

20 The Little Review

cannot come out of myself. My wife is very silent and speaks softly
but she cannot come out of herself.

My wife has gone out of the house. She does not know that I know
every little thought of her life. I know about her and what she
thought when she was a child and walked in the street of an Ohio
town. I have heard the voices of her mind. I have heard the little
voices. I heard the voices crying that night long ago when she was
suddenly overtaken with passion and came running to crawl into my
arms where she lay trembling. I heard the voices of her mind talk-
ing as we sat together on the first evening after we were married and
had moved into this house.

It would be strange if I could sit here, as I am doing now, while
my own face floated across the picture made by the yellow house
and the window. It would be strange and beautiful if I could meet
my wife, come into her presence.

The woman whose face has just floated across my picture knows
nothing of me. I know nothing of her. She has gone off along the
street. The voices of her mind are talking. I am here in this room
as alone as ever any man God made.

It would be strange and beautiful if I could float my face across a
picture, if my floating face could come into her presence, if it could
come into the presence of any man or any woman. That would be
a strange and beautiful thing to have happen.

Napoleon went down into a battle riding on a horse.

General Grant went into a wood.

Alexander went down into a battle riding on a horse.

Some day I shall make a testament unto myself.

I'll tell you what — sometimes the whole face of this world floats in a
human face in my mind. The unconscious face of the world stops
and stands still before me.

The Little Review 2\

Why do I not say a word out of myself to the others? Why, in all
our life together, have I never been able to break through the wall
to my wife? Already I have written three hundred, four hundred
thousand words. Are there no words for life? Some day I shall
make a testament unto myself.

Indisposition

by Mark Turbyfill

Tjjg crested tulips
By the white pebble path
Array themselves as chattering birds of paradise.
Their flame streaks on iridescent surfaces
Shock the great space of waiting in these thin days.
A derisive little wind

Executes pas de chat across the shaking buds,
And my eyes play tricks on my ears,
And I hear

The piercing, deafening, flaunting, condemnation
Of vivid angry birds.

"Ulysses'' in Court

by Margaret Anderson

THE trial of the LUtle Review for printing a masterpiece is
now over — lost, of course, but if any one thought there
was a chance of our winning ... in the United States
of America.

It is the only farce I ever participated in with any
pleasure. I am not convivial, and I am usually bored or outraged by
the state of farce to which unfarcical matters must descend. This
time I had resolved to watch the proceedings with the charming idea
of extracting some interest out of the fact that things proceed as one
knows they wlil proceed. There is no possible interest in this fact, but
perhaps one can be enlivened by speculating as to whether they will
swerve the fraction of an inch from their predestined stupidity.

No, this cannot engage my interest: I have already lived througli
the stupidity. So how shall I face an hour in a court room, before
three judges who do not know the difference between James Joyce
and obscene postal cards, without having hysterics, or without trying
to convince them that the words "literature" and "obscenity" can not
be used in conjunction any more than the words "science" and "im-
morality" can. With what shall I fill my mind during this hour of
redundant human drama? Ah — I shall make an effort to keep en-
tirely silent, and since I have never under attack achieved this simple
feat, perhaps my mind can become intrigued with the accomplishment
of it.

It is a good idea. There are certain civilized people who pro-
ceed entirely upon the principle that to protect one's self from attack
is the only course of action open to a decent and developed human
being. My brain accepts this philosophy, but I never act upon it — •
any more than Ezra Pound does. I am one of those who feels some
obscure need to have all people think with some intelligence upon some
subjects.

But I am determined, during this unnecessary hour in court, to

T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 23

adopt the philosophy of self-preservation. I will protect my sensi-
bilities and my brain cells by being unhearing and untalkative.

The court opens. Every one stands up as the three judges enter.
Why must I stand up as a tribute to three men who wouldn't under-
stand my simplest remark? (But this is reasoning, and I am deter-
mined to be vacuous.)

Our attorney, Mr. John Quinn, begins pertinently by telling
who James Joyce is, what books he has written, and what are his
distinguished claims as a man of letters. The three judges quite
courteously but with a bewildered impatience inform him that they
can't see what bearing those facts have on the subject — they "don't
care who James Joyce is or whether he has written the finest books in
the world"; their only function is to decide whether certain passages
of "Ulysses" (incidentally the only passages they can understand)
violate the statute. — (Is this a commentary on ''Ul3'sses" or on the
minds of the judges?) But I must not dream of asking such a ques-
tion. My function is silence. Still, there is that rather fundamental
matter of who is the author:^ Since Jrt is the person — / But this is
a simplicity of logic — they would think I had gone mad.

Mr. Quinn calls literary "experts" to the stand to testify that
"Ulysses" in their opinion would not corrupt our readers. The opin-
ions of experts is regarded as quite unnecessary, since they know only
about literature but not about law: "Ulysses" has suddenly become
a matter of law rather than of literature — I grow confused again :
but I am informed that the judges are being especially tolerant to
admit witnesses at all — that such is not the custom in the special
sessions court.

Mr. John Cowper Powys testifies that "Ulysses" is too obscure
and philosophical a work to be in any sense corrupting. (I wonder,
as Mr. Powys takes the stand, whether his look and talk convey to
the court that his mind is in the habit of functioning in regions where
theirs could not penetrate: and I imagine the judges saying: "This
man obviously knows much more about the matter than we do — the
case is dismissed." Of course I have no historical basis for expecting
such a thing. I believe it has never happened.

Mr. Philip Moeller is the next witness to testify for the Little

24 The Little Review

Review, and in attempting to answer the jxidges' questions with intelli-
gence he asks if he may use technical terminology. Permission being
given he explains quite simply that the objectionable chapter is an
unveiling of the subconscious mind, in the

Freudian manner, and that he saw no possibility of these revelations
being aphrodiasic in their influence. The court gasps, and one of the
judges calls out, "Here, here, you might as well talk Russian. Speak
plain English if you want us to understand what you're saying." Then
they ask Mr. Moeller what he thinks would be the effect of the ob-
jectionable chapter on the mind of the average reader. Mr. Moeller
answers: "1 think it would mystify him." "Yes, but what would
be the effect?" (I seem to be drifting into unconsciousness / Ques-
tion — What is the effect of that which mystifies? Answer — Mystifi-
cation. But no one looks either dazed or humourous, so I decide that
they regard the proceedings as perfectly sensible.)

Other witnesses (among them the publishers of the Dial, who
valiantly appeared at both hearings) are waived on the consideration
of their testimony being the same as already given. Mr, Quinn then
talks for thirty minutes on the merits of James Joyce's work in terms
the court can understand: "Might be called futurist literature";
"neither written for nor read by school girls" ; "disgusting in portions,
perhaps, but no more so than Swift, Rabelais, Shakespeare, the Bible" ;
"inciting to anger or repulsion but not to lascivious acts"; and as a
final bit of suave psychology (nauseating and diabolical), aimed at
that dim stirring of human intelligence which for an instant lights up
the features of the three judges — "I myself do not understand
'Ulysses' — I think Joyce has carried his method too far in this ex-
periment "...

"Yes," groans the most bewildered of the three, "it sounds to me
like the ravings of a disordered mind — I can't see why any one would
want to publish it."

("Let me tell you why" — I almost leap from my chair. "Since
I am the publisher it may be apropos for me to tell you why I have
wanted to publish it more than anything else that has ever been offered
to me. Let me tell you why I regard it as the prose masterpiece of
my generation. Let me tell you what it's about and why it was

The Little Review

written and for whom it was written and why you don't understand it
and why it is just as well that you don't and why you have no right
to pit the dulness of 3'our brains against the fineness of mine " . .)

(I suddenly feel as though I had been run over by a subway
train. My distinguished co-publisher is pounding me violently in
the ribs: "Don't try to talk; don't put yourself into their hands" —
with that look of being untouched by the surrounding stupidities
which sends me into paroxysms. I smile vacuously at the court.)

Mr. Quinn establishes, apparently to the entire satisfaction of the
judges, that the offending passages of "Ulysses" will revolt but not
contaminate. But their sanction of this point seems to leave them
vaguely unsatisfied and they state, with a hesitation that is rather
charming, that they feel impelled to impose the minimum fine of $100
and thus to encourage the Society for the Prevention of Vice.

This decision establishes us as criminals and we are led to an
adjoining building where another bewildered official takes our finger-
prints ! ! ! *

Owing to editorial mediation as
to what passages must be deleted
from the next instalment of
"Ulysses" Episode XIV will not
be continued until next month.
M. C. A.

*In this welter of crime and lechery, both Mr. Sumner and the judges
deserve our thanks for one thing: our appearance seemed to leave them with-
out any doubts as to our personal purity. Some of my "friends" have con-
sidered me both insane and obscene, I believe, for publishing Mr. Joyce.

Poems

by Philippe Sotipault
Flamme

UNE enveloppe dechiree agrandit ma chambre.
Je bouscule mes souvenirs
On part.
J'avais oublie ma valise.

Dimanche

L'AIRON tisse les fils telegraphiques
et la source chante la meme chanson
Au rendezvous des cochers I'aperitif est orange
mais les mecaniciens, des locomotives ont les yeux blancs
la dame a perdu son sourive dans les bois.

Horizon

TOUTE la ville est entree dans ma chambre
les arbres disparaissaient
et le soir s'attache a mes doights
Les maisons deviennent des transatlantiques
le bruit de la mer est monte jusqu'a moi
nous arriverons dans deux jours au Congo
j'ai franchi I'Equateur et le Tripique du Capricorne
je sais qu'il y a des cottines innombrables
Notre Dame cache le Gaurizanker et les aurores boreales

la nuit tombe goutte a goutte

j 'attends les heures

Donnez moi cette citromade et la dernier cigarette

je reorendroi a Paris.

T h e L i 1 1 1 e Re V i e w 27

Route

J'apercus le souvenir de ta voix se pencher
IVIon corps bercait mes pensees
les fills telegraphiques s'enfuyaient

Le heurt d'un caillon sonna midi.

Katrina Silver staff

by Djuna Barnes

^^"W" "W' T" E have eaten a great deal, my friend, against the

^/ m/ She was a fine woman, hard, magnificent, cold,

▼ T Russian, married to a Jew, a doctor on the East
Side.

You know that kind of woman, pale, large, with a heavy oval
face.

A woman of 'material' — a lasting personality, in other words,
a 'fashionable' woman, a woman who, had she lived to the age of
forty odd, would have sat for long fine hours by some window, over-
looking some desolate park, thinking of a beautiful but lazy means
to an end.

She always wore large and stylish hats, and beneath them her
mouth took on a look of pain at once proud, aristocratic and lonely.

She had studied medicine — but medicine in the interest of ani-
mals, she was a good horse doctor — an excellent surgeon on the
major injuries to birds and dogs.

In fact she and her husband had met in a medical college in
Russia — she had been the only woman in the class, the only one of
the lot of them who smiled in a strange, hurt and sarcastic way when
dissecting.

28 The Little Review

The men in the class treated her like one of them, that is, they
had no cringing mannerliness about their approach, they lost no poise
before her, and tried no tricks as one might say.

The Silverstaffs had come to America, they had settled on the
East Side, among 'their own people' as he would say; she never said
anything when he talked like this, she sat passive, her hands in her
lap, but her nostrils quivered, and somewhere under the skin of her
cheek something trembled.

Her husband was the typical Jewish intellectual, a man with
stiff short graying hair, prominent intelligent and kindly eyes, rather
short, rather round, always smelling of Greek salad and carbolic
acid, and always intensely interested in new medical journals, theories,
discoveries.

He was a little dusty, a little careless, a little timid, but always
gentle.

They had been in America scarcely an eight months before the
first child was born, a girl, and then following on her heels a boy,
and then no more children.

Katrina Silverstaff stopped having her children as abruptly as
she had begun having them; something complicated had entered her
mind, and where there are definite complications of the kind that she
suffered, there are no more children.

"We have eaten a great deal, my friend, against the day of
God," she had said that.

She had said that one night, sitting in the dusk of their office.
There was something inexpressibly funny in their sitting together in
this office, with its globe of the world, its lung charts, its weighing
machine, its surgical chair, and its bowl of ineffectual gold fish. Some-
thing inexpressibly funny and inexpressibly fecund, a fecundity sup-
pressed by coldness, and a terrible determination — more terrible in
that her husband Otto felt nothing of it.

He was very fond of her, and had he been a little more sensitive
he would have been very glad to be proud of her. She never became
confidential with him, and he never tried to overstep this, partly be-
cause he was unaware of it, and partly because he felt little need of
a closer companionship.

The Little Review 29

She was a fine woman, he knew that ; he never thought to ques-
tion anything she did, because it was little, nor what she said, because
it was less; there was an economy about her existence that simply
forbade questioning. He felt in some dim way, that to criticise at
all would be to stop everything.

Their life was typical of the East Side doctor's life. Patients all
day for him, and the children for her with an occasional call from
someone who had a sick bird. In the evening they would
sit around a table with just sufficient food, with just sufficient silver
and linen, and one luxury ; Katrina's glass of white wine.

Or sometimes they would go out to dine, to some koscher place,
where everyone was too friendly and too ugly and too warm, and
here he would talk of the day's diseases while she listened to the
music and tried not to hear what her daughter was crying for.

He had always been a 'liberal,' from the first turn of the cradle.
In the freedom of the people, in the betterment of conditions, he took
the interest a doctor takes in seeing a wound heal.

As for Katerina Silverstaff, she never said anything about it.
he never knew what she really thought, if she thought at all; it did
not seem necessary for her to do or say anything, she was fine as she
was, where she was. On the other hand it never occurred to him that
she would not hear, with calmness at least, his long dissertations on
capital.

At the opening of this story, Katerina's daughter was a little
girl of ten, who was devoted to dancing, and who lay awake at
nights worrying about the shape of her legs, which had already begun
to swell with a dancer's muscles.

The boy was nine, thin, and wore spectacles.

And of course what happened was quite unaccountable.

A man, calling himself Castillion Rodkin, passed through one
summer, selling Carlyle's 'Trench Revolution." Among the houses
where he had left a copy was the house of Otto Silverstaff.

Katerina had opened the door, the maid was down with the
measles, and the doctor was busy with a patient, a Jew much revered
for his poetry,

30 The Little Review

She never bought anything of peddlers, and she seldom said
more than "no thank you." In this case she neither said "thank you,"
nor closed the door — instead she held it open, standing a little aside
for him to pass, and, utterly astonished, he did pass, waiting behind
her in the hall for orders.

"We will go into the study," she said, "my husband is busy."

"I was selling Bibles last year," he remarked, "but they do not
go down in this section."

"Yes," she answered, "I see," and she moved before him into the
heavy damp parlor which was never unshuttered and which was never
used. She reached up and turned on one solitary electric light.

Castillion Rodkin might have been any nationality in the world ;
this was partly from having travelled in all countries, and also from
a fluid temperament — little was fixed or firm in him, a necessary
quality in a salesman.

Castillion Rodkin was below medium height, thin and bearded
with a pale, almost white growth of hair. He was peculiarly colour-
less, his eyes were only a shade darker than his temples, a vague
color, and very restless.

She said simply, "We must talk about religion."

And with an awkwardness unusual to him he asked "Why?"

"Because," she said in a strained voice, making a hurt gesture,
"it is so far from me."

He did not know what to say of course, and lifting one thin
leg in its white trousers he placed it carefully over the other.

She \vas sitting opposite him, her head turned a little to one
side, not looking at anything. "You see," she said presently, "I want
religion to become out of the reach of the few."

"Become's a queer word," he said.

"It is the only word," she answered, and there was a slight irri-
tittion in. her voice, "because it is so irrevocably for the many."

"Yes," he said mechanically, and reached up to his beard and
left his hand there under a few strands of hair.

"You see," she went on simply, "I can come to the point. For
me, everything is a lie — I am not telling this to you because I need
your help, I shall never need help," she said, turning her eyes on his

The Little Review 31

understand that from the beginning — "

-"Beginning," he said in a loud voice suddenly.

"From the beginning," she repeated calmly, "right from the
very start, not help but hindrance, I need enough hindrance, a total
obstacle, otherwise I cannot accomplish it."

"Accomplish what, madame?" he asked and took his hand from
under his beard.

"That is my affair, mine alone, that you must not question, it
has nothing to do with you, you are only a means to an end."

And he said, "What can I do for you?"

She smiled, a sudden smile, and under her cheek something flick-
ered. "You can do nothing," she said and stood up. "I must always
do it all — yes, I shall- be your mistress — wait," she said raising her
hand, and there was anger and pride in her. "Do not intrude now by
word or sign, but tommorrow you will come to me — that is enough —
that is all you can do," and in this word 'all' he felt a limit on him-
self that he had never known before, and he was frightened and dis-
quieted and unhappy.

And he came thf next day, cringing a little, fawning, uneasy, and
she would not see him — she sent word "I do not need you yet," and
he called again the next day and learned that she was out of town,
and then one Sunday she was in to him.

She said quietly to him, as if she were preparing him for a great
disappointment, "I have deliberately, very deliberately, removed
remorse from the forbidden fruit," and he was abject suddenly and
trembling.

"There will be no thorns for you," she went on in a cold abrupt
voice. "You will miss that, but do not presume to show it in my
presence."

"Also my floor is not the floor on which you may crawl," she
continued, "and I do not permit you to suffer while I am in the
room — and," she added unfastening her brooch slowly and precisely,
"I dislike all spiritual odours."

"Are we all strange?" he whispered.

"It takes more than will to attain to madness."

"Yes."

32 T he Little Review

Then she was silent for a while, thinking.

"I want to suffer," he murmured, and trembled again. .

"We are all gross at times, but this is not your time."

"I could follow you into the wilderness."

"I would not miss you."

And it was said in a terrible forbidding voice.

"I suffer as a birthright — I want it to be something more my
own than that."

"What are you going to do?" he said.

"Does one ever destroy oneself who is utterly disinterested?"

"I don't know."

Presently she said, "I love my husband — I want you to know
that, it doesn't matter, but I want you to know that, and that I am
content with him, and quite happy "

"Yes," Castillion Rodkin answered and began trembling again,
holding on to the sides of the bed.

"But there is something in me," she continued, "that is very
mournful because it is being."

He could not answer and tears came to his eyes.

"There is another thing," she said with abrupt roughness, "that
I must insist on, that is that you will not insult me by your presence
while you are in this room."

He tried to stop his weeping now, and his body grew tense,
abject.

"You see," she continued, "some people drink poison, and some
take a knife, and others drown, I take you."

In the very early dawn, she sat up with a strange smile. "Will
you smoke?" she said, and lit him a cigarette. Then she withdrew
into herself, sitting on the edge of the mahogany boards, her hands
in her lap.

And there was a little ease, and a little comfort in Castillion
Rodkin, and he turned, drawing up one foot, thrusting his hand
beneath his beard, slowly smoking his cigarette.

"Does one regret?" he asked, and the figure of Katrina never
moved, nor did she seem to hear.

"You know, you frightened m.e — -last night." he went on, lying

T h e Li 1 1 le Review 33

on his back now and looking at the ceiling. "I almost became some-
thing — something."

There was a long silence.

"Shall the beasts of the field and the birds of the air forsake
thee?" he said gloomily, then brighth'. "Shall any man forsake thee?"

Katrina Silverstaff remained as she was, but under her cheek
something quivered.

The dawn was very near and the street lamps had gone out, a
milk cart rattled across the square, and passed up a side street.

"One out of many, or only one?"

He put his cigarette out, he was beginning to breathe with diffi-
culty, he was beginning to shiver.

"Well—"

He turned over, got up, stood on the floor.

"Is there nothing I can say?" he began, and went a little away
and put his things on.

"When shall I see you again?"

And now a cold sweat broke out on him, and his chin trembled.

"Tomorrow?"

He tried to come toward her, but he found himself near the
door instead.

"I'm nothing," he said, and turned toward her, bent slightly;
he wanted to kiss her feet — but nothing helped him.

"You've taken everything now, now I cannot feel, I do not suffer
— " he tried to look at her — and succeeded finally after a long time.

He could see that she did not know he was in the room.

Then something like horror entered him. and with a soft swift
running gait he reached the door, turned the handle and was gone.

A few days later, at dusk, for his heart was the heart of a dog,
he came into Katrina's street, and looked at the house.

A single length of crepe, bowed, hung at the door.

From that day he began to drink heavily, he got to be quite a
nuisance in the cafes, he seldom had money to pay, he was a fearless
beggar, almost insolent, and once when he saw Otto Silverstafif sitting
alone in a corner, with his two children, he laughed a loud laugh
and burst into tears.

UTTLE REVIEW

Editor:

Margaret Anderson

Foreign Editors:

John Rodker Jules Romains

Advisory Board
jh

Discussion

Sum?2er Versus James Joyce
by HatTtet Monroe

I WANT to send a word of cheer for your courage in the fight
against the Society for the Prevention of Vice. My father was
a lawyer, and his blood in me longs to carry the battle to the
Supreme Court of the United States, in order to find out whether
the Constitution permits the assumption of a self-appointed group of
citizens, of a restriction of the freedom of the press which only the
state, through proper legal channels, should have any right even to
attempt. I wish you a triumphant escape out of their clutches.

T h e Li 1 1 1 e R e V i e w 35

Lawrence Atkinson
by Horace Shipp

^rp]

^^rr^HE MADNESS OF THE ARTS" has driven W. R. Titter-
ton to the columns of the English Review with Part One of a
metrical diatribe which one suspects will become vitriolic about
vers libre and abstract painting bj^ Part Three. Truth to tell the arts
always were mad if the term connotes their continual wandering
from the watch-fires of tradition into the trackless places of grow-
ing human consciousness. Sane art is usually shopkeeping — trade in
beauty: the art school with the courage to open a department de-
voted to salesmanship will affect an advance both in membership and
honesty. But the big people in art have usually wandered away
from the counter just before the professors in literature and the fine
arts have classified and labeled the goods.

In this tradition of deserting the traditional, the movement of
pictorial and sculptural art from the phase of representation to that
of complete abstraction has been an orderly and inevitable progres-
sion: orderly and inevitable, because once the principal of subjectivism
is admitted in art (as it was in the sentimental selectiveness and
idealism of the romantic paint photographers) it moves quite natur-
ally through impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, cubism,
neo-vorticism, and every other "ism" which yet sleeps in the mind
of man.

As Wyndham Lewis questioned the architects, the problem
always is "Where is your vortex?" So long as a man's art revolved
around the pleasant portrayal of external appearances truth to those
appearances and that pleasanteness must be the test. But alwavs
there had been even among artists the wise who realised that they
had some more useful task to hand than the making of replicas in
some dead material of the things of the vital universe. At last,
however, the tricks of the trade became so obvious that these wise
concluded that what was not worth doing so well was not worth
doing at all.

36 The Little Review

One remembers a play of Rudolf Besier's: A party of Cockneys
invade the country; one by one they grow conscious of new
phenomena; each murmurs, "Cows an' 'orses an' things," the audience
rocked with laughter. The analogy? Eminent Academicians spend-
ing their distinguished careers murmuring "Cows an' 'orses an'
things" in paint (sometimes achieving the final d and the aspirate).

That is why the new movements matter; that is why abstract
art and Lawrence Atkinson matter. It is somethmg more than the
reiteration of the existence of things — it is the assertion of basic
forces in ^e universe and of basic ideas in the mind of the artist.
Atkinson's work depicts both and establishes their relationship. Thus
he deals not in surfaces and the simple facts of optics — appearances —
hut in form and the known dynamics beneath surfaces. More im-
portant still, he deals in the merchandise of the mind, which releases
his conceptions alike from the three dimensional of space and the
single point of time. That is where the new art, escaping from the
portrayal of one space at one time into the eternal present and limit-
less horizon of the human intelligence, can achieve so much. That
is where it may fail for the recesses of mentality are so remote, so
-jh ^ unique and individual that there is danger of the artist who depends

^^^■^(1 ^ no longer upon the safe link of visual appearances, removing his point
of interest so far as to lose contact altogether with his audience;
sharing the loneliness of God in looking on his work and seeing
that it was good.

Here it is that the search for the symbol commences, and that
devotion to technique which must always play an important part,
and which in the case of the old schools had become exalted from
a means to an end in itself.

With Atkinson's work the search for a suitable medium of
communication between his own mind and that of others has led
him to reject the sophisticated formula of some of the recent schools
and to depend for his effect upon a use of line, form and colour to
which generations of race consciousness have given a universal

significance.

Often it is true the complexity of his own mind assumes a power
of instinctive comprehension in that of his audience which is not

IN THE BEGINNING. BY LAWRENCE ATKINSON.

38 T h e L i 1 1 1 e R e V i e w

forthcoming, and the more difficult of his works (particularly the
pictures) lose their range so that their significance passes over the
heads of onlookers.

Recently, however, Atkinson has turned his attention to sculp-
ture, which by the very nature of the medium tends to broader effects
and more simple statement than it sister art of painting. The illus-
trations show phases of Atkinson's plastic work: the one where he
was expressing himself in a formula practically geometrical, which
interesting as it was had too great an interest in the mechanical
structure of its subjects, the other which aimed at expressing an
idea as nature would have expressed it had she been working in a
medium of clay or stone — a significant amorphism. So much of the
recent abstract work in England has tended to be mechanical.
Granted that much can be achieved with such a means as the piece
called "In the Beginning" shows. Here the artist has been interested
in somthing more vital than surface or even structure ; he has endowed
"Ir the abstract figure — half human, half animal — with a prophetic sense

I of tragedy. The structural lines are strong and heavy in token of

the perfection of animal strength. In striking contrast is the inertness
of head and hand: the hand hanging limply, the head bowed by the
realisation of good and evil, its melancholy emphasised by the sculp-
tured pattern.

It is this emotional value in Atkinson's work which differentiates
it from so much that has gone hitherto in the name of artistic ab-
straction. He is not making his appeal from the sophisticated in-
tellect to intelligence equally sophisticated, but from instinct to the
instincts — a safer and saner thing in an age run to seed in mere
cleverness. Occasionally Atkinson himself succumbs to the tempta-
tion and works out a concept so intellectually that it misses that direct
appeal and simplicity which was the vital secret of early art. Usually,
however, he deals with elemental things, simplifying to essentials,
and choosing lines which have so long spoken to the sub-conscious-
ness of the race that their message is immediate and effective.

The picture "Tranquille" with its sense of sunlit peace and the
expressive lines of the body bowing to an acceptance, the studied
relationship of the figure to its surroundings, the conventionalised

TRANQUILLE. BY LAWRENCE ATKINSON.

40 The Little Review

blue bands at the top which convey distance and immensity as only
blue can — these things speak as easily and in a language as generally
comprehensible as that of any traditional art.

The later, and I think the most interesting phase of his work
is that which I have called "significant amorphism" : the sculpture
which aims at direct expression of ideas in forms which are their
natural incarnation. "Growth" is a tyical piece of this kind. The
heavy, simple lines of the earth-base, the vital upward movement
(harmony achieved by like impulse) the complexity in the later
stages of development when the lines diverge but are still governed
by truth to their own relationship to a predestined paralellism and a
movement back toward the central purpose.

The three examples will serve.

An eminent critic writing recently of Atkinson salted his ap-
preciation with a doubt as to whether the art would ever becom':
popular. The only art which has ever deserved that name has been
this basic art which makes its appeal to the instincts and the sub-
consciousness. That is why I believe that his work will find ac-
ceptance. He is not working on a basis of appeal merely to the super
intellectuals but along lines of universal appeal and capable of infinite
development and expression.

Apropos art and its trials legal and spiritual,
by Emmy V. Sandei's

IF THE puritan were nothing but a puritan and the philistinc
nothing but a philistine, they would leave the art world alto-
gether alone — like the navvy, the farmhand, the greengrocer
and all of that species that claims no relation to art whatever and
is perfectly contented to remain densely ignorant about such matters
forever.

The trouble starts with "Culture." The sort of culture that
does claim a relation and professes tender feelings in the direction of

GROWTH. BY LAWRENCE ATKINSON.

42 The Little Revi

art — provided the art in question is of a date anterior to 1900, at the
latest; and provided there does not cling to it an odour of rebellion
that not even the museum-smell of time has been able to change into
an odour of unmixed sanctit} ; and provided it is not too grimly and
uncompromisingly art alone without the accompaniment or the dis-
guise of other elements that make it palatable to the cultured. Furth-
ermore, if very subtle it must have been coarsened ; if very strong it
must have been emasculated at the hands of professorial Authority
and must be liable to popularization in print and photograph. All
these conditions being fulfilled and 1900 given as an extreme. . . .

Oh, the homes of these art-loving cultured people — where lily-
like Botticelli Madonnas languish at you over mantel-shelves; where
you find Rembrandt's mother and Whistler's mother and the
cathedral of Rheims and Shelley and Beethoven sonatas and a Burne
Jones and and — the Atlantic Monthly. Oh, the deadness and the
dullness and the blindness! Oh, the plague of an "appreciation" that
appreciates in a work of art — whether a temple of the times of
Rameses the Great or a page of Conrad — everything except the art
element, the aesthetic vitality of the thing considered.

This tribe of the cultured approaches an aesthetic phenomenon
conscientiously equipped with facts, information, standards of com-
parison, borrowed values, good intentions. There is nothing lacking
in the outfit — except the one and only 'essential : inner experience. It
is convinced that it is convinced that A is a great poet and B a great
sculptor and that it gets something out of the presence and the con-
tact of these greatnesses (which it does: viz., the wrong thing). It
believes that art is theory nicely applied — as a good engine
is mechanics nicely applied ; a matter of teaching, prece-
dent and "culture" ; not a matter of spontaneous vitality and aesthetic
emotion forcing its own peculiar form. The cultured philistine is
heteronomous by nature. The vague, third hand, falsely focussed
satisfaction he derives from art knows nothing of inherent laws and
irresistible organic growth. He does not understand — never can,
never will understand — that before each new art form as a whole and
before each separate product of art and before each artistic individu-
ality as such, constant re-adjustment of mental approach is required.

The Little Review 43

He — or rather his epidermis — contacts everything in the same way
and with the same demands and expectations.

Sometimes he mentions the artist as a being different from him-
self, a being of quicker vibrations, more sensitive perceptions and
unusual waj^s of contacting life and transmitting life experience. But
at the bottom of his heart he denies that the artist is di.. rent from
himself. Lacking imagination, how can he conceive of that which is
not a part of his world and his mental equipment? Therefore he
treats the artist and his activities necessarily as he treats himself: a
thing onto which empty generalities and inflexible rules and regula-
tions can be pasted and stuck from the outside.

Strange, this. It would never occur to this intelligent and cul-
tured person that he might interfere and play the judge between
two Chinamen, by merely babbling things in his own tongue, with-
out the slightest knowledge of Chinese that might enable him first
to find out what are the issues at stake and what is really "going on."
He never suspects that art has a language of its own; a language not
of words only, but of subtle reactions and ever shifting valuations
taking place in the depths of the artist soul — and that a fair amount
of knowledge of that language is indispensable for knowing what is
at stake. He suspects still less that this language, however, is a matter
of birthright and cannot be acquired by "butting in."

So he goes on, interfering and talking. Talking — forever beside
the point. And in his actual interference with mental and aesthetic
processes backed up by material and physical power — the last "argu-
ment" of his cultured self.

Once upon a time — once upon a dark benighted time — learned
judges and the then "cultured ones" they represented, innocent of
psychology, of pathology, of scientific analysis and spiritual endeavor,
applied instruments of torture to the flesh of other human beings
whose mental states and reactions they did not, could not, understand.
All with the laudable intention of driving out the devil — the devil
of unfortunate insanity or luminous sanity, as the case might be — and
of preventing contagion. But that was a few hundred years ago —
and we don't torture bodies any more. . . .

Quousque tandem. Cultured Philistine?

44 T he Little Review

Mr. Rodke?^ and Moder?i F?^e7ich Poetry
by Muriel Ciolkowska

WERE one to write every time one reads rubbish in news-
papers one might do nothing else in one's life, but one
has a duty towards a paper which publishes one's own
name, therefore the following:

"Poetry," asserts Mr. John Rodekr in your last, "dead in
France since Verlaine — with only the exception of Apollinaire and
de Gourmont — -appears to be looking up with M. Louis Aragon."
The quotations show what Mr. Rodker means by "live" poetry. But,
as he does not quote Gourmont, I am free to say that this great prose-
writer — who sometimes wrote verse not at all like M. Aragon — is
hardly claimed as one of them by poets not "alive" though I think
they would say that as such he came nearer to them than does M.
Aragon. The first part of this sentence is information; the second
an opinion. I am also free to object to a general cemetery being
made of: Henri de Regnier, Anna de Noaiiles, Paul Claudel.
Guy-Charles Cros (the son), Renee Vivien, Charles
Peguy, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Charles Vildrac, Spire,
Andre Salmon, etc., which is really too ridiculous. I leave a margin
for other protestators to fill with names of those who wrote contem-
poraneously with or have written since Verlaine and whom the world
ventures to qualify by the same term as Mr. Rodker applies to M.
Aragon, whom I can hardly imagine will survive Mr. Rodker's praise.
If Mr. Rodker has no liking for modern French poetry why
does he trouble to write about it?
Paris, January 6, 1921.

To Mina Loy
hy John Rodker

T IS too bad. My own pet serpent turns upon me, and if you
only knew with what incredible devotion she has been nursed
in my bosom. And why has she bitten me? Because I can love

The Little Review 45

her like a frog, or can I? Yet were I, regardless of consequences to
my more delicate anatomy, to love in a froggy way the carcase of
American poets and poetesses whose very very cast-iron entrails have
so lately been sung by the noble baroness, would not my very froggy
embrace strenuously impel it to that not too remote star on which
it has how long and how painfully striven to hitch itself? Surely;
for even Miss Loy must know what the probable upshot of such action
would be. Still, Mina, though you are not "big with gentle yielding"
(oh not not not in a frogg}' way) now I know Kreymborg has written
lines as good as that I take back humbly all I have said about him.
As for Donald Evans you have quite missed the point, and herbarium
is still herbarium. Froggy greetings to the fish.

— How jolly that the snake charmer so gracefully parries his pet
snake's indulgence in a little buffoonery. And so we can laugh to-
gether for a moment, while Mr. Kreymborg clamours against free
speech.

John Rodker — as one European to another, Mina Loy salutes

you.] MINA LOY.

The Wind-flowers of AsklepiadeSy and Poems of
Poseidippos; The Poems of Melea^ar of Gadara
Poets' Translation Series Second Set, Nos, 5 and
6. The Rgoist, 2- and 2-6 net,
by Ma?y Butts

I HAD been re-reading the "Aphrodite" of Pierre Louijs in an
unsuccessful attempt to induce a little excitement. (One has
nothing to say against M. Loujs as a translator, and the "Chan-
sons de Bilitis" are a most agreeable evocation, but the historical
romance begotten by the modern mind on the mirror of the past is
always base-born. I am not thinking of "Salambo" or "The Brook
Kerith" but, reluctantly, of every other serious narrative reconstruc-

46 The Little Review

tion I have ever read.)

But "Aphrodite" is sufficient to show that it is not enough to
love 3'our period or proportion out its constituents — (two little
Lesbians, one magnificent and one ageing hetaira, two stoics, an
epicurean, and a person with doubts about the whole affair) — not
enough to take a clairvoyant perception of the age's beautiful objects
and their common use; you will only succeed in writing about your
period, and the professor with style and imagination will put you in
your place.

M. Louys had a correct idea. He knew about the hieratic value
women set on their beauties, from the most obvious to the rtiost
intimate. In the opening chapters his courtesan catalogues her love-
liness to the accompaniment of confirmation by her favorite slave.
She works downwards from the rich hair by which she was known
to the more practical part of her accomplishment :

"Thy tongue is the bloody dagger that has made the
wound of tliy mouth."

"My tongue is inlaid with precious stones. It is red
with the sheen of my lips." . . .

"Thy thighs are two white elephants' trunks."

"My feet are two nenuphar leaves upon the water."
. . . There was a silence. . . . The slave bowed to the
ground. "It is like a purple flower. . . . It is appalling.
It is the face of the Medusa."
And so on. Now listen to the contemporary voice:

Plangon has laid in the vestibule of Kypris' temple a
purple riding- whip and shining reins which helped to con-
quer Philainis.

Bring her, beloved Kypris, glory and fame without end.

This inscription for a grave:

I hold Arkheanassa, the hetaira of Kolophon, in whose
very wrinkles lov^ lived.

-T h e Lit tl e Review 47

For those who prefer It under a different formula :

Pour the wine and say again and again and yet again
say Heliodora, rningle that sweet name with the wine. Give
me the flower-crown of yesterday, wet with perfume, in
memory of her.

I have still in my mind, though shamefacedly, Lang's version
of the lament for that same Heliodora, but Mr. Aldington's is prob-
ably the best yet made :

/ give thee tears, poor tears, all that is left ?ny love,
to you, Heliodora, in Hades under the earth. On your
tear-wet grave I lay the memory of our passion, the mem-
ory of our affection. . . .

This would seem to say — 'write about the life of your age, and
trust a thousand years later to the permanence of your language, the
sympathy of your translator.'

^^ Scidpshiire^

My Khrist Kant somethin' be done about this man George G.
Barnard. It aint Mikel Angerlo, an' it aint even Rodin. It's just
mashed popatoz, and the fog end of the last censhury's allegory.
Before he spoils all that good marble can't somebody tell him about
Egypt and Assyria, or pay his ticket so he can go look at some
sculpshure made by someon' who had some idea of stone as distinct
from oatmeal mush an molarsses. Hasn't even the sense of stone one
finds in Barroque. — Abel Sanders.

The Little Review

Thee I call'' Hamlet of JVedding-Ring'

Criticism of IVilliam Carlos William's
'^ Kora in Heir' and ivhy..,

by Else von Freytag-Loringhoven

In two parts

Part I

OT to be sentimental — of that you are fearfully- too fearfully afraid
to escape suspicion — flaunt brazen cloak of inexperience right side

out

lining; sentimentality.
Male inexperience=brutality —
female=sentimentality.
Reaction to life — ununderstood.
Baffles — troubles — unable to handle.
Strangers in country — set in to live.
No explorers!

Cast-aways — on shore — shivering!
Foreigners forever!
castaways on shore — shivering!

Scant cover cloak — no other garment fashioned for fear to go get — live
merry — die trying.
Plain:

different shade of cloak prompted by sex.
Proof:
malebrute — intoxicated — turns "weeping willow" invariably! Outside cloak

tatters — caution — tottering — (malebluster: "squared shoulders": I read

All Story Weekly regularly) — lining visible.
Inexperience shines forth in sentimentality — that masqueraded in brutality:

male-bluff.
Never strength is brutal —
— unhesitating acknowledgement of necessity — removing infected limb by

operation.
Action starting from brain — without noise — bluster — bluff.
Strength not moans — wails — voice of indecision — weakness.
Strength : decision — realizes trouble — remedy — instinctively — empiracally —

scientifically — in accord — acts — hence — never regrets.
Regrets: blind mental orbs.
Quiet child of brain — logic: European war.

T he Little Review 49

Moral strength of scientist — surgeon — physician of degree. Vision.
Brutality: child of denseness — inability to feel, think clean — lack of vision —

vulgar blood-fogged brain — run amuck!
Despair of helplessness to escape blindness of jungle vines of thought tangled

— of waste barren, unfertile — violent action — noise — clamour:
American lynchings.

To undeveloped sentimentalist strength appears cruel — as all life does to fool.
Life never is cruel — brutal — gentle — sympathetic —
inhuman — impersonal — super-intelligence !
Logic — pure.

Mathematical justice of scale balancing universe.
No one is — does not receive to last grain value of what pays power — that

weighs — tests coin.
Who pays cheap — receives tawdry — counterfeiters step off fake-value in lap.
Culture: experience. Flimsy cloak of shivering pauper — coward — replaced

by glittering armour of knight — poised upon strength — knowledge.
That aristocracy —

value for value: daring for treasure — valour for deed.
True to formula — male brute intoxicated bemoans world — (into that he

never stepped) — his existence — all existence!
Example: — Hamlet of Wedding-Ring:
"WhatshallforFlosh — agh ? eckshishtensh — eck — eck — eck — shish — damn ! —

life damn! wife damn! art damhc!!! Hellshotashhell — "
Elaborately continued swing on trapeze in "circus of art" following this

article — if tempted.
In vino Veritas.
Try it— W. C.

Old observations minted wisdom. So old — handled — lose impression.
True — profundity.
Subconscious — unknown reason for prohibition in this country that never is —

has been — run by intellect — sagacity — wisdom.
Shortsighted people seeing as far as finger length.
Boil proclaims disease — stop boil!
Look pretty— quick! paint! — powder — ! perchance culture will be deceived—

greet us as civilization — invite us into ancient castle aloft.
Bluff— bluff— damn bluff!

No time — no time — no time to fasten roots downward — become civilized nat-
urally — inside slow progress — chemical logic —
Let's appear it — outside!
Put it on!

N'est ce pas — mon bon ami, W. C. ?
Americans not possessing tradition — not born within truth's lofty echoing

walls — born on void— background of barren nothingness— handle such

50 T he Little Review

truth's coin — picked up — flippantly!

S nous ess of mind — bad for business: flip it — be empty —

"Forget it" —

Did.

Forgot everything — to avoid trouble."

Tradition — culture — responsibility — pride — honour: troublesome: smile sillily

wise !
By problems stalked — unvanquished — fattening — wary.
By avalanche destroyed!
Lusty beast massed upon prey exhausted —
ostrich — head in dollarheap.
Life supreme — conquers — destroys: sophistication — flippancy — sarcasm —

weapon of crudity — fatigue.
Paper fortress of educated mental coward — bloodpauper: vulgarian disguised

knight vanguished: America — France,
guised vanquished knight: America — France.
Flippancy — worse — flippancy is bad — tool of shallowness — consciencelessness

— insincerity — in Wilde we see it — has to do with you, W. C.
Still — Wilde is juggler with circus tradition.
You — country lout — trying to step into tights.
Juggle words — as balls — about feelings — impressions —
such you have — no art!

No rhythm — curves — science — conviction — background — tradition !
Where your circus?
Where do you stand?
What do your words mea ^ ?
Never to point- — what point?

There is none — carry no meaning — aimed at blank!
No background — tapestry — spangled cloth — circus — arena — tradition —
carry none!

Uncreated — uncreative.
No echo from — to —
no carriage — resonance —

feeble lost soul piping miserably in agony of despair —
— no concern of ours —
Stray words of unnourished — unevolved — decaying imagination — in abandon

of disorder — conceit — despair — composure lost — juggled before public

to deceive yourself —
trying to deceive others!

Vain fools do that — one way or other in life — called bluff —
in America by no means despised — successfully carried off —
cheap circus that!
Let swirl — sometimes pretty — sometimes beautiful — sometimes strong even —

T he Lit tie Re vie w 51

all-times bad science — throughout unskilled —

no right to perform.

What do juggler's balls signify but skill of juggler?

Balls must be importance — skill matter of course. '

Juggle significance with balls jewelled —

that I mean: balls jeivelled —

Keep person in background —

physical presence forgotten:

To you —

to audience.

Strength of you: brutality — makebelieve — phantasmogoria — cheating before

limelight — hysteria! such it is.
Grace — rhythm of juggler is strength.
Grace — rhythm is strength: body — mind.
I once saw supposed stagegiant lift huge weights — gesticulating — ferocious —

heaving — sweating — ah very convincing — in farce. After exit tiny

page — tiniest to emphasize effect — carried off ponderous cannon balls

— jaunty!
Startling!

This shall be to you — you your best audience.
Here simile ends:

Life no farce — nor I tiny — nor would it be effective.
Art — literature no farce — nor artist actor — permitted makebelieve.
Life: circus of seriousness grim — as effigy — distinguished circus — also is.
Science — skill — perfection — purpose in everything!
Audience — performer — cultured — no cheating.
Hoiv cultured is God?

Perfection is purpose — of life — circus — to satisfy audience!
Makebelieve shall be known as such — must be brilliant in performance —
more magic — more skill — tit for tat —

something must be given in exchange for applause — no amateurish bluff car-
ries laurels —
Clumsiness: disguised strength {not vice versa, IV. C.) — agility — technique

subtle.
Nothing in circus funny — easy — for performer — unless in breathing-space

during rest.
Performance — action — work: breathless — highest tension.
Clown — sauntering leisurely — aimlessly — taut in muscle — brain — to purpose —

carries point.
Truly great actor more seriously in character he carries — slips into: than

you — W. C. — are in what you try to show off in: force.
Force ripples — vibrates life — muscle in action one visible form.

52 T he Lit tie Review

You: brittle — breaking — decaying iron — eaten by rustworm.

Blood tingles with repugnance: that vain vanity!

You surely are in hell!

Ignore I would that — not would blood tingle — iv/iere there is not blood hidden

This no way out.

Gleefully W. C. discovers — (let's participate in discovery if not in glee —
stunned to meet mummy wavering along highway of art — ghastly! not
to W. C. : makes practice out of dancing with dead things — has to
dance with some things — can not afford palpitating things — takes
corpse — handy) :

"The imagination goes from one thing to the other" —

(like stray flea!)

Do say! ! !

"The age of humans is told by the hair" —

Mummy — fade to catacomb — shoulder to shoulder with sister shade —

out of dictionary —

W. C.'s flea so unmannerly — disobedient — untrained —

by careless mistake let into circus — jumps upon shimmer-raked sensitive
arena sawdust — prepared for meticulous* delicious design — criss-cross
— naughty — vulgar — apish !

Subconscious guilt (is there better proof of hidden knowledge of impotence —
sidelong glancing bad conscience?) makes W. C. send nurse after run-
away pet — making apologies for hilarious rioting from common-sensed
tender-swelling matron bosom to invite understanding — admiration —
love for snookums' uncouth romping — indecent postures — smirking:
temperament — patient audience —

(aside:) jackasses!

Voice of nurse:

"The arrangement of the Notes (!) each following its (!) Poem (!) and

separated from it by a ruled line — "

My voice in audience:

Resourceful bourgeois !

painstaking doctor!!

loving papa! ! !

Be trainer — flea master — !

Stray flea vermin —

Tom — Dick — Harry — houses — no luxury hours to cuddle.

Circus flea artist —

every jump active consciousness!

*This word dedicated solely to Marcel Duchamp. Gave It to me with
tongue lilt emanation of spirit — H is he.

TheLittleReview 53

Alcohol unsettles — dethrones caution — removes mask — exhibits soul's true

state.

America's soul in such condition — she even realized — had to do something!

With shallowness — flippancy — not unfamiliar in politics of this lumbering
blunderer — helpless giant on infant's feet — knuckles for brains — alto-
gether freak — forthwith decided to hide disease beneath artificial
complexion — over-paint boils — blemishes — mask ill — vulgar features —

factorygirl America.

One does not help soul in merely depriving it of drug.

What does America offer instead?

Nothing!

Hence W. C:

With shreds of intellect — reason — imagination — heirlooms scattered — torn —
ravaged — from timeremoved Spain — by ancestor — hale — whole — nor
Jew nor American —

with United States carloads of conceit of inexperience —

vain boy — mature only in years — business — not in veins — emotion:

that most desolate of lonelinesses: not to have grown — developed — ad-
vanced in experience of blood with advancing years — most hideous
cripple:

immature man!

Oiie has to learn to be grown-ups.

Castaway on shore of life — stranger to experience —

fugitive from emotion —

coward of blood:

starving — crying for food — cloth — to cover naediiess — emotions shattering
in barrenness — provided no sheltering garment — carressing folds! for
ornament — to be gay with — proud — to adorn him with — in splendour —
man's estate — to be precious — worth name !

Mans woman's womans more so I — too cowardly to go get — live merry — die
trying —

in courage happiness — in defeat self-respect — in death dignity — corpse vic-
torious —

never in cowardice!

S.iouid it look ever so proper — safe! — hedged — bordered — by frontlawn —

bungalow — bankaccount — town esteem.: shell for self-contempt — hoivever

thick that may be — by: either own voluptuousness — (shall I say "sumptuous-
ness," W. C. ? — reminds me of startling answer! piercing radiance
regarding your relationship to words — baffling attitude toward art —
shall relate it later on) or callousness of possessor — kernel is felt —
felt by W. C.

Hence, W. C:

54 T he Lit 1 1 e Review

With audacity of inexperience— cowardice of insincerity— distinct— peculiar
not surprising — characteristic of all representatives of races of lost
foothold :

no convictions— none to stand on— for— fight with— for— ideal of family cave
— only one — tottering in primitive insufficiency all around where occurs
some growth — development — evolution in brain cells — : in intellect fed
by senses — stirred by imagination — ambassador of instincts — tottering
even around about W. C. with heavy clumsy brain — atavistically
handicapped by Jewish family tradition — sentiment — where shall wis-
dom — (child of conviction — courage — intense concentration — that must
take place of primitive thread-bare ideal — as does in Europe) — come
from in America — destroyer of value — creator never —

unless in sense negative — creating disgust — revolt — in developed inhabitants —

by decree of pawer as everything serves ultimate goal.

God is God —

stronger than chaos —

foe to disorder. '

Bad things yeast to raise revolt in dough — achieve right balance in cake.

Far still is world from being cake — well-baked —

raisins — with tissues tender — feel lumpiness of dough most — scream — tell —

I feel W. C.s stagnation — fake-gesture — tell scream:

Familycave crumbling — shedding mortar — tottering — debris-littered — dingy-
looking sty — no joy — not holding nails to parade — flaunt ornament —
pride of spendthriftly generous — rich heart — more dire necessity to
system of every creature: scent — song — dip — dance — colour — play —
to: flower — fish — bird — racoon — Indian — us — than material necessi-
ties — foundation to start ecstasies! Needs airship hangar to fly from —
not to be overshadowed by — tied to — swallowed up — wiped out —
shackled to cowardice of immobility — American mistake of dense
vulgar brains rendering W. C.'s legs immovable — agonized arms out
— thrust — vile curse of helpless rage on sneering lip distorted —
doomed to torture — tries to swing up into: dip song — scent — colour —
play — t/iat miserable fashion.

Feet incased by faulty foundations decay — debris — stone — dust — to escape

cave partly — leffs entombed.
Cowardice — insufficiency — incapability not encases legs: immovable legs

produce immovable brains.
Around us result of family cave: encased legs — brains — in faulty founda-
tions' debris: America.
W. C.'s "art" faulty foundation — crumbling walls —
hysterical doings —

to ward off fate — dimly realized — by degree to smother alive:
Squirms — thrashes — blasphemes — howls — telling himself — us: it — be music! —

TheLittleRevieu) 55

undaring — incapable to extricate himself — right — decisive — strong —
clean action of man —
neurasthenic —

amount of acting to escape action —

overdone — wild — weak gestures — violent — incoherent — utterances — to dis-
guise condition — : crippledom —
above everything — from oivn consciousness;

Shall we extend pity — endure — recognize — honor: — agony — grimaces — howls
— writhings of cripple — needing nurse — death — in art-circus's arena —
performers — who belong — have strength tested — ability — genius —
Raisins?

He no raisin — yeast!
Circus has freak show —
life — shadow — hospital — prison —
his place !

Stagnation creates revolt —

life suppressed will scream — since life is life —
even in America:

W. C. screams — I — zu/io more artful?
Hence my right to judge: expel fake performer — amateur — freak — to v.>here

belongs!
Silly impudent cripple — tactless — ill in brain with family — cavetrouble de-
formities — indignities — infirmities — weaknesses — wounds — sores — j ab-
bering!
Get well — die !
Keep place.
From rudeness of title to crude triteness of content "Kora in Hell" does

make me scream — struggle against insult to life's beauty — dignity —

splendour — nobility — harmony — sense — raisins are aware of — have to
guard against mob-attack — lynchring — ! bring knowledge along in
tissues — blood of body — ancient wine in cobvvebbed old bottle.
Life: sense!

Art never insults life! loves — caresses every form — shape.
Who hates — insults life — proves pariah.
Thee I call "Hamlet of wedding-ring" — chasing ghost of honeymoon bliss —

to detect who poisoned — killed — once live body.
Circumstance primarily — individually — insignificant — since not can blood

be filled into extinct withered-away tissue.
Of secondary — social — importance for reason of exploration — civilization.
Life — joy — onward movement — sensuous rush of hour must not be restricted

— upheld.
King's throne never is empty because king is murdered — king is immortal —
tradition's progressive law — God's law.

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58 T he Lit tie Review

Revenge: emotion uncreative — orbs in back of skull — unadvancing — cells
stagnant — sentimental — unconstructive memory — dwelling in ceme-
terygarlanding grave of honeymoon bliss — life's ony sad duty — !
hugging skeleton — "dancing with dead things" (such dance becomes
habit with stagnant cells) — hiding — retreating from swoop of time —
brilliant — open battle — stupid sacrifice of present to past — of blood to
past — of future to past. Present future's — creator's — time — to plant —
faster creation — action — future — not for past — revenge — destruction.

No great revolution — war — ever has been — logically could not be — backmo-
tion — impulse secondary! but: step of change — expansion — pulse:
impulse primary — fall of leaves.

Revenge: backwash:

Winter: summer's logical successor — killer by necessity — for advancement —
new bloom.

Nature sits in nature's lap: one two — two one — action — contra — action —
clash — new life.

After detection Hamlet unable to decide on action befitting system — tem-
perament of: either artist — philosopher — or man — soldier — not suffi-
cient system — temperament in evidence. Reads philosophy with mind
incapable either to use — leave it. Unfit. Youth old — sapped of stamina
— unfertile emotions — robbed — cheater of strength to shape character —
l/iat makes take stand.

Weakling — wails !

Doing amount of acting to escape action —

suited Shakespeare —

put Hamlet into play to parade unfitness. Solution: annihilation — death.

He had Hamlet — I have you.

At that time — many more hysterical alleys — byways — to avoid facing prob-
lem — than prince of Denmark discovered — Hamlet's trod —

did not toot through megaphone agonies of crippledom into — public from
street corners — thoroughfares — calling it "art."

Would have cost dear in ridicule — "pillory" — danger: being stoned to death
for disorderly conduct — public insult.

Tradition — touchstone — sensitive to forms of life:

Genius — straight shapes — shapes mediocre — misshapes.

Tradition's necessity precious result:

to produce strong pure type for high places — find every one's place:

weakling into mediocrity — sordidness — annihilation.

Caste.

Democracy makes cripples conceited — gives fools chances — helps weakling —
lout — to place where does not belong.

The Little Review 59

Not God's way.

God's way long service.

Chances must not be easy.

Nature — power — God — : selective — aristocratic — : tradition — aimed for per-
fection.

One logically contains other: selection — discard.

Uncontaminated justice.

Where pity?

Aristocracy: fitness to fulfill obligation —

thus:

Aristocrat is born — as artist is. Civilization's business to make conscious of:
caste of culture.

Aristocrat's high social station — estate to uphold that — hangar for airplane —
to do exalted business unhampered — as is king's throne — crown — sym-
bols for exalted duty that takes exalted strength — t/iat is splendor.

Demand of continous individual happiness — densest lack of logic — iindevelop-
ment — primitive — rank — unreasoning animal — desire — vulgar — plebian.
— no aristocrat is guilty of.

To be human: part of spirit — know ivill.

Blood — instinct — turn to brain cell — intellect — light.

For exclusively that reason blood circulates flesh.

Sun — earth — to — fro — to — fro electric current — exchange.

Bliss — woe fruit from tree — shell — nut — nut — shell — nuttree — fragrant in
paradise — slandered by Jehova.

Emotion: soul's gymnastic — mothersoil: sex — march onward — motion up — !

Every sinewy scintillating jerk — curve — twist — distortion — of snake: to per-
fect ultimate goal — : unit.

in perfect circle holding tanl with lip.

in perfect circle holding tail with mouth.

God's booming laugh.

Snake dance: south —

Snake circling earth: ..Norse myth.

Primitive organism — in profundity constructed sound — feels life's sense —
sensuous dance — in sorrow profoundest — red deathwound: joy — ex-
hilaration — in simplicity — as did Goethe — in wisdom:

Visitation.

"Wer nie sein Brod mit Trahnen ass —
Wer nie die kumniervollen Nachte

Auf seinem Bette weinend sass

Der Kennt euch nicht ihr himmlishen Machte."
Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe.

60 T he Lit 1 1 e Review

Body's comfort — discomfort — ache — bliss of organism — nil !

Emotion — spirit moving — woe — bliss dancing — lifecrest — supreme Nietzsche!

Nietxsche — Goethe — century later: disintigrating — breaking culture — for ac-
quisition of new blood — for that must blood be spilled — expansion —

With Nietzsche war started,
light — step up !

All Teutons.

American — jew — equals — not repulsing each other for that reason — as —
through tradition's wisdom — jew does european — asiatic — in luhom re-
sides bloodknoivledge.

American — jew of future.

Today in newness not noted — tradition ignorant to existence.

In materialism callous — brain dense — plebianism — jew — american — meet.

God's goal: body to soul — material to spirit — arriving at Himself.

In Europe "Kora in Hell" never had had chance!

In Europe W. C. no need do that! — he ivould not be.

Jew mixture — in Europe — not as castaway — spirit-desertd :

Heine: aristocratic artist product — teuton-hebrew.

As poet only.

In lilt of his no ring of distempered jewharp in lilt that shattered to splinters
by waters of Babylon.

Artist soul of Heine noble teutonic metal — purest ring. ,

Today — in future days — no Heine can be born in Europe.

Times change —

current strong —

jews stagnant —

degree — further —

ruined. . . .

{to be continued)

A WOYEI.

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

POOR. WHITE

At Bookstores $ Im^O

Recor?t77iended to you by The l^ittle Review

The Reader Critic

JValter ShaiVy Ne^v York:

May I ask in the name of art why next month you will "report all the
blatant ineptitudes of the court proceedings," and answer them?

Surely none of your audience gives a damn what the court says; we
have all reached that stage of sophistication, so why use up good paper on
subjects with which we have no concern? It is purely a matter for your
business manager to get out of as easily as possible — unless you still believe
in "progress" and the possibility of education by yelling about "injustice";
but even then it is a matter of sociology — not at all within the field of art.

But what is within the field of aesthetics: As one of your audience who
does not feel "Ulysses" is a work of art (no one with whom I have dis-
cussed "Ulysses" considers it more than "interesting") I suggest or perhaps
have the right to demand, since you agree with Coomaraswamy that the
rasika has a duty to prove his contention that a certain work is art, a criti-
cism of "Ulysses" from you.

This is within your field and not an answer to the organized stupidity
of the non-aesthetics.

[These things do not go by duty and obligation but by necessity.
You have no more right to demand that the critic make a new work
of art (his criticism) than you have a right to demand the original
work of art. Certainly the critic has to prove his case if he has the
necessity to make other men see and believe what he has perceived;
but no one can demand it of him.

"Ulysses" has been running in the Little Revieiv for three years.
There have been many discussions in that time about Mr. Joyce as an
artist and about different aspects of "Ulysses." If you and your
friends who think it only interesting have not the perception or the
grace to know that Joyce is an artist, then no second sight could come
to you, I fear.

If you have not seen him tight-rope-walking the cobweb of the
human consciousness, conceiving and executing the rhythms of un-
spoken thought; if you have not seen Mr. Bloom spring full-fledged
from his own brain; if you haven't the carefully organized, master-
fully coloured abstract picture of the mind of Dublin; if you have not
got the luminosity of his genius, nothing will help you but a work .of
equal magnitude which no one could write and which you again would
not understand. — jli.)

Errata

In poems by Philippe Soupault beginning page 26:

"Flamme" — first line — "dechiree."

"Dimanche" — last line — "sourire."

"Route" — last line — "caillou."

"Horizon" — last line — "reviendrai."

In poem on page 17, "Mer d'Huile" — first line — "Si nous" . . . etc.

{Lti Stgnalalra J* c* mant/tite hailUnI ta Frantt, Tj^mlrlqae. I'EtpagiU,
tjHlemagtu, I'lioU; la 5(i(iw. ta Btiglvvt. tU-. matt n'ani oucunt nalhnaluO

PAPA souLEVE TOUT

DADA connaft tout. DADA crache tout.

MAIS

DADA VOUS A-T-IL JAMAIS PARLE :

o^'

ov>^

ds ritalie
♦* des accordions

. O des pantalons de femnaes

de la patrie

des sardines

de Fiume

de I'Art (tous exag^rez cher ami)

de la douceur

^-♦* de d'Annunzio

.O quelle horreur

de rh6roIsme

des moustaches

de la luxure

de coucher avec Verlaine

de I'id^al (II est gentil)
^_^^ du Massachussetts

^\J du pass£

des odeurs

des salades

du g£nle . du g^nle . du g^nie

Q*' de la journ^e de 8 heures

et des Tiolettes de Parroe

JAMAIS JAMAIS JAMAIS

DADA ne parle pas. DADA n'a pas J'idee fixe. DADA n'attrape pas les mouckes

LE MINISTERE est RENVERSE.mroui? PAR DADA

Le futurisie est mort. De quol ? De DADA

Une jeune fille se suicide. A cause de quoi ? De DADA

_A On t^l^phone aux espritt. Qui est-ce I'inventeur ? DADA

. O On vou« maiche «ur le« piedi. C'est DADA

^ Si voua avex dei idtes «4rieuse« sur la vie,

. ^ Si VOU8 faites des d^couverlea artistiques

*\ ^ et »i tout d'un coup voire t4le se met Ik cr^piter de rire,

O ti vous trouvez toutes vos idtes tnutiles et ridicules, sachez que

C'ESr DADA SlUt COMMENCE A VOUS PARLER

*Issued at the contra-Marinetti demonstration in Paris recently.

le cubisme constrult una cath6cirole en pat6 da Toie artlsticiue

Que fait DADA ?

lexpresslonnlsme empolsonne l«s sardrnos artlstlques

Que fait DADA ?

le slmultan^lsmo en est encore & ea premiere communion artistlque

Que fait DADA ?

le futu^isme veut monter dans un lyrlsme + ascenseur artistlque

Que fait DADA ?

lunanlnlsme embrasse le toutlsme et p6che A la llgne artistlque

Que fait DADA ?

le n^o-classlcisme d^couvre les blenfalts de lart artistlque

Que fait DADA ?

le paroxysme fait lo trust de tous les fromages artlstlques

Que fait DADA ?

Vultraisme recommande le melange de ces 7 choses artlstlques

Que fait DADA ?

le cr6aclonisme le vortlctsme limaglsme proposent aussi quelciu«s recettes artistlQues

Que fait DADA ?

50 francs de recompense a celui qui trouve le moyen de nous expliquer

DADA

Dada passe tout par un nouveau filet.

Dada est I'amertume qui ouvre son rire sur tout ce qui a ete fait consacre oublie dans noire
langage dans notre cerveau dans nos habitudes. II vous dit : Voila I'Humanite et les bell
sottises qui lent rendue heureuse jusqu'a cet age avanci

l#" DADA EXISTE DEPIIS TOIJOIRS

m' LA SAI\TE MERGE DEJA FIT DADAISTE

DADA N'A JAMAIS RAISON

Citoyens, camarades. mesdames, messieurs,
M6fiez-vou8 des contrefacons I ^P

Iisa imitateurs de DADA veulent vous presenter DADA sous une forme artistlque qu'il n'a
jamais eue

CITOYENS.

On vous presents aujourd'hui sous une forme pornographique, uti esprit vulgaire et baroque

qui n'est pas I'IDIOTIE PURE riclaxaie par DADA

MAIS LE DOGMATISME ET LIMBE CILITf! PRETENTIEUSE I

PtJtM 12 Janviet ig^r E. Varese, Tr. Tzara, Ph. Soupault, Soubeyian, J. Rigaul,

G. Ribemont-Dessaignes, M. Roy. F, Ficabia, B. P^ret,
Pour toute information C. Pansaers, R, Huelsenbeck, J. Evola, M, Ernsl, P. Eluard,

S:air,,zer " AU SANS PAREIL " S"t; P^r'Tif 'f?. ^"'p'^^^P' j;-'-''"!' G- Canlarelli, Mar^.

Bullet, Oab. Bullet, A. Breton, Baargela, Arp, \\. C Arens-
37, Avenue K]6ber. Tel. PASSY 25-22 berg, L. Aragon.

lies

EXHIBITION

PAINTINGS

Sherwood Anderson

SUNWISE TUKN
51 East 44th St.

New York

ADVENTURES IN FORM
AND COLOR.
THERE ARE CERTAIN IMAGES
THAT HAUNT THE HUMAN MIND.
THEY CANNOT BE EXPRESSED IN
WORDS EXCEPT THROUGH THE
POET WHO OCCCASIONALLY

RAISES THE POWER OF WORDS
BEYOND THE REAL POSSIBILITY
OF WORDS.

1 AM NOT A MUSICIAN, BUT IT IS
NOT UNLIKELY THAT WHAT 1
HAVE TRIED TO DO IN FORM AND
COL-OR IS RELATED TO THE IM-
PULSE OF THE MUSICIAN.
SOME MONTHS AGO I WAS IN THE
SOUTH AND IN A VERY COLORFUL
COUNTRY. BEFORE MY HOUSE
LAY A BAY— AN INLET FROM THE
GULP OF MEXICO. THERE HAD
BEEN HEAVY RAINS UP COUNTRY
AND THE RED SOIL WAS WASHED
DOWN INTO MY LITTLE BAY— THE
BAY BECAME RED. THE MORNING
AND AFTERNOON LIGHT FALLING
ON IT MADE A COLOR MADNESS
THAT GOT INTO MY BRAIN— AL-
THOUGH I HAD NEVER BEFORE
TOUCHED A BRUSH I SENT FOR
BRUSHES AND PAINTS.
THE ADVENTURES HERE DONE
ARE MY INNER REACTIONS FROM
THE THINGS SEEN ABOUT ME—
THEY ARE DONE IN THE FAITH
THAT AN IMPULSE NEEDS BUT BE
STRONG ENOUGH TO BREAK
THROUGH THE LACK OF TECHNI-
CAL TRAINING. IN FACT TECHNI-
CAL TRAINNING MIGHT WELL DE-
STROY THE IMPULSE.
THESE ADVENTURES ARE UN-
NAMED BECAUSE THEY CANNOT
BE FIXED SO DEFINITELY, TO
GIVE THEM NAMES WOULD DE-
STROY CERTAIN VALUES I BE-
LIEVE THEY HAVE AS THEY
STAND. TO YOU THEY MAY BE
UGLY, MEANINGLESS OR BEAUTI-
FUL. NO DOUBT ALL OF MY INNER
THOUGHTS AND IMPUl SES— LIKE
YOUR OWN IF THEY COULD BE
SEEN— WOULD BE, TO SOME UGLY,
TO OTHERS MEANINGLESS, AND
TO STILL OTHERS BEAUTIFUL.
SHERWOOD ANDERSON.

'!( .;

. -^

IT'T':

V >

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A 'i svcA

^iLii;:::«::;|fei^!;piS';H:ij; iii

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